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UCT RESEARCH REPORT 2012
Butterworth (both Mathematics and Applied Mathematics),
John de Gruchy (Religious Studies), Gerd Gäde (Zoology),
Lionel Opie (Medicine), Clifford Shearing (Criminal
Justice), and Dan Stein (Psychiatry and Mental Health), and
Distinguished Professor Philippe-Joseph Salazar (Rhetoric
Studies), were reconfirmed under this cycle. The NRF
awarded P ratings, made to exceptional young researchers,
to Dr Åke Fagereng (Geological Sciences) and Dr Andrew
Hamilton (Physics).
The achievements of some of our other distinguished
researchers were also recognised through a number
of national awards. At the 2012 annual NRF awards
function, Professor Tim Noakes (Human Biology) received
the Lifetime Achiever award, Professor Kelly Chibale
(Chemistry) was recognised as the Champion of Research
Capacity Development at Higher Education Institutions,
and Professor Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan (Zoology)
received the Transformation of the Science Cohort
award. Professor Alison Lewis (Chemical Engineering) was
named Distinguished Woman Scientist in Physical and
Engineering Sciences by the Department of Science and
Technology (DST), while Dr Sindiso Mnisi-Weeks (Private
Law) received the DST’s Emerging Researcher Award for
the Development of Rural Women. Our research and
innovation achievements were evident in the 2012/13
National Science and Technology Forum – BHP Billiton
Awards, where honours went to Emeritus Professor Robert
Millar (Medical Biochemistry), Professor Graeme Cumming
(Zoology), and the Adaptive Real-Time Internet Streaming
Technology (ARTIST) Collaborative Project between UCT,
East Coast Access, and the Council for Scientific and
Industrial Research.
Four new Research Chairs were awarded to UCT under
the DST/NRF SARChI programme in 2012: Stable Isotopes
in Archaeology and Palaeoenvironmental Studies,
Environmental and Social Dimensions of the Bio-Economy,
Reaction Engineering, and Industrial Computational Fluid
Dynamics. There are now 33 such Chairs hosted by UCT.
Across-the-board support to researchers is essential if
we are to maintain this track record and grow the next
generation of scholars. Such support at UCT takes the
form of a range of initiatives and formal programmes
to enable academics to complete higher degrees, get
published, access research funding, and generally develop
a passion for research. The oldest of these programmes,
the Emerging Researcher Programme (ERP), reached its
tenth year in 2012. To date, the ERP has provided research-
related support to more than 600 emerging researchers at
UCT, across all disciplines.
As a university, we have set ourselves the strategic goal
of moving from a research-led university to a research-
intensive university. This will require careful planning and
the will to succeed, in order to overcome a number of
challenges in moving towards our goal.
The most important of such challenges facing UCT (and, in
fact, all higher education institutions) is to secure the right
amount of funding to realise our ambitions in the research
arena. While we remain grateful for the funding for
research from our main South African funding agency, the
NRF, the reality is that such funding – for research generally,
but especially for the experimental sciences – is under
great pressure. Because so much of NRF funding is tied
for specially directed purposes (such as funding for rated
researchers, SARChI Chairs, and Centres of Excellence),
calls for the funding of actual research projects have been
inadequate and irregular, and UCT’s research output is
already being harmed – despite the fact that the university
Leading women scientists at UCT: Professor Heather Zar holds an A rating from the National
Research Foundation. She is Head of the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health and
Director of the School of Child and Adolescent Health. Her research focuses on priority
areas in child lung health, including pneumonia, tuberculosis, HIV-associated lung disease
and asthma, developing a strong clinical translational research programme.