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Building a partnership in bioscience, engineering, and environmental science

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Ayanda Noma (Director: Innovation and Technology Transfer Directorate), Prof. Michele Havenga (ED: CGS), Michel Flement (Ghent University), Dr Daisy Selematsela (Acting VP: Research, PG Studies, Innovation, and Commercialisation), Siza Magubane, Director: International Relations), and Iarre Lafort (Ghent University)

Delegates from Ghent University (Universiteit Gent, abbreviated as UGent) visited Unisa on 6 March 2018 to discuss strengthening ties between the two institutions.

The purpose of this visit covered, among others, the following:

  • Implementation of existing memorandum of understanding (MoU) and strengthening of ties with Unisa
  • Explore further cooperation as proposed in the signed MoU
  • Enhance existing cooperation with the College of Science, Engineering, and Technology (CSET) and explore further cooperation with the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES)
  • Consider collaborative projects in areas such as bioscience, engineering, statistics, ICT, environmental sciences, and related areas
  • Focus mainly on bioscience, engineering, environmental science and related areas
  • Explore possibilities in internationalisation and student exchange programmes

According to Lunathi Hontoti of Unisa’s Strategic Partnerships Division, matters discussed during the meeting in Pretoria included formalising the current MoU into a strong cooperation agreement (MoA) to open opportunities for more, strategic collaboration. “While the initial engagements involved CSET and CAES, the focus now is to extend the partnership to other types of collaboration and other Unisa colleges,”

Some of the areas discussed include open scholarship, research data management, repositories, and internationalisation, including student exchanges.

  • Possible areas of cooperation agreed at the meeting:
  • Student exchanges: UGent has fee funding for study at the university so Unisa would have to consider how such an exchange could be implemented
  • Foster collaboration for emerging researchers through the Africa Platform at UGent
  • ICT collaboration and technology transfer
  • Include other fields of study: Law and criminology, economics and business, social sciences

At the Science Campus, similar issues were raised but the following were the core of interest:

  • CSET and CAES showed an interest of having cooperation in physics and statistics
  • They were interested in the short term exchanges and internships both here and at UGent in Belgium
  • The identification of advisors
  • To formalise the cooperation agreement in order to unlock the monies available for these projects

*Compiled by Boikanyo Moremedi

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Publish date: 2018-03-15 00:00:00.0

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