UCT seats seven

Professor Daya Reddy has received one of the seven UCT research chairs announced by the DST in December.

UCT received seven of the first 21 research chairs on the National System of Innovation (NSI) recently. This marks the conclusion of round one of the new South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChl) of the Department of Science and Technology. Unveiling the research chairs, Minister of Science and Technology, Mosibudi Mangena, said the SARChl seeks to reverse the decline in research output in South Africa. This programme, which has already been allocated R 200-million, plans to establish 210 research chairs by 2010. The research chairs at UCT are Dr Erwin de Blok (astrophysics), Dr Ernesta Meintjes (brain imaging), Prof Kevin Naidoo (scientific computing), Prof Iqbal Parker (cancer biology), Prof George Philander (climatology), Prof Daya Reddy (computational mechanics) and Prof Clifford Shearing (security and justice).