Faculty of Veterinary Science
Prof NPJ Kriek, Dean
Telephone number: 012 529 8201
Fax number: 012 529 8313
E-mail address: nick.kriek@up.ac.za
Preface by the Dean
The Faculty of Veterinary Science recently adopted a new vision statement relevant to its research program. This vision statement declares that the Faculty will be involved in the provision of effective veterinary and para-veterinary manpower and skills to promote the welfare of the total socio-economic spectrum of communities in South Africa and other sub-Saharan countries through the improvement and maintenance of animal health, animal welfare, animal production, animal work performance, veterinary public health and the conservation of natural resources. This is to be realized through conducting internationally recognized, ethical research and the development of centres of excellence.
In order to achieve its mission the Faculty decided to focus its research on five focus areas:
- Wildlife health and production;
- Veterinary problems of developing communities;
- Economically important diseases of livestock in the sub-Saharan region;
- Veterinary Public Health and Environmental Safety; and
- Important conditions of companion animals in the sub-Saharan region.
In its Strategic Plan (2005), the Faculty identified four objectives aimed at increasing its research output:
- To increase the number of subsidy-earning scientific publications in accredited journals in order to reach or surpass the norm accepted by the University;
- To increase the number of post-graduate students in order to ensure a sustainable growth in research output;
- To increase the number of post-docs in order to raise the standard of research and to provide additional mentorship for post-graduate students; and
- To increase external funding for research either in terms of contract research or by competing for research grants from state-funded bodies such as the National Research Foundation (NRF), Technology and Human Resources for Industry (THRIP) Program, BioPAD, etc.
Considerable progress has been made during 2005 in the achievement of these goals. Subsidy units based on publications increased by 20% over the previous year and 35,5 % compared to 2001. Although these figures are gratifying we still have a long way to go to meet the University’s norm, mainly because a large percentage of the faculty’s staff have major clinical responsibilities and therefore little time for research.
Nevertheless, the number of staff members with an NRF rating increased by 50% during the year under review. Also gratifying is an increase of 33% in the number of registered PhD students and 62% in the number of post-docs over the same period.
Unfortunately the increase in external funding for research did not match these figures and only amounted to about 7%. On the whole, however, 2005 can be regarded as a successful year for the Faculty of Veterinary Science.
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