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06 April 2018 Photo Rulanzen Martin
Researchers to represent UFS at BRICS Summit
From the left: Dr Thulisile Mphambukeli, leader of the BRICS research team that is exploring the political economy of water and food security, and her research partner, Dr Victor Okorie.

A Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) delegation is to hold the 10th Annual BRICS Summit in the last week of May 2018 in Johannesburg. Dr Thulisile Mphambukeli, leader of the University of the Free State (UFS) research team alongside Dr Victor Okorie from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, in collaboration with Prof Lere Amusan of North-West University, will ensure that water and food security is a prominent feature on the gathering’s agenda.
 
First, the project titled: “Exploring the political economy of water and food security nexus in BRICS and Africa” will debut at the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences BRICS Think Tank Forum”.

According to Dr Mphambukeli, the key to water security is attitudinal change by means of education and conscientisation. This, she is adamant about, holds the potential to drive behavioural adjustments in the way society interacts with water.
 
Genetic and social approaches
Dr Okorie asserts that if strides towards reducing the demand for water were to be made, research efforts should be geared towards effecting changes at DNA level. Meaning we need to explore waterwise ways that enable crops and animals to thrive optimally. 

The project also looks at social dimensions of water such as flushing a toilet. “Research activities on redesigning toilets, especially the urinal, where more than nine litres of water are used to flush less than one cubic centimetre of urine, are timely in the context of managing water and the food nexus crises,” said Dr Okorie.

Combining the genetic and social approaches would allow us to produce more with a smaller water footprint. This can be made possible by implementing precision agriculture which is about estimating and applying exact quantities of water and nutrients needed for the production of crops or the raising of livestock.

Paradigm shifting policies
Prof Amusan said the team intended to propose functional solutions that take the quality of water into consideration. Equitable production and distribution of water depends on endorsing policies of co-production between citizens, governments and the public sector. BRICS member states mutually consider water and food security as an issue of paramount significance, hence its feature on this prestigious summit’s agenda.

News Archive

Official opening: UFS earmarks R10-million to support national priorities
2006-02-06

 

The University of the Free State (UFS) is to align key areas of its academic and research efforts with national priorities through the introduction of five strategic clusters which would be funded by seedmoney of R10-million in 2006.

Speaking at the Official Opening of the UFS on Friday (3 February 2006), the Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Frederick Fourie, said the academic and research work that will be done in the five strategic clusters would contribute to the development of Mangaung, the Free State, South Africa and Africa.

 “It makes sense to concentrate the university’s human resources, our infrastructure, financial resources and intellectual expertise to ensure that the UFS makes a contribution to the country and the African continent,” Prof Fourie said.

“Strategic clusters will be organised on the basis that these areas of knowledge could become in the short term the flagships of the UFS, meaning those areas where the university currently has or in the very near future is likely to have some competitive advantage,” Prof Fourie said.

According to Prof Fourie, this strategic-cluster approach will be in line with the approach being designed by the National Research Foundation (NRF) to take national priorities into account and would enhance the quality of scholarship at the UFS.

The five strategic areas in which research and academic investment at the UFS will be clustered are the following:

Enabling technologies / Technology for the future;
Food production, quality and food security for Africa;
Development;
Social transformation;
Water resource and ecosystem management;

“Such strategic clusters are understood not only as research areas but as areas that also encompass strong undergraduate and particularly postgraduate teaching and a potentially solid scientific basis for service learning and community service research,” Prof Fourie said.

Within each of these clusters specific niche areas will be identified. Clusters could focus on one or more aspects of a particular discipline or could involve more than one discipline in researching a particular issue.

He said not all academic work and research being done at the UFS would be clustered in this way. Sufficient resources and support have been put in place for general research excellence in the past five years.

“Some of the spin-offs can have an important impact on industrial development, for example in the chemicals industry and may also create a basis for cooperation with provincial, national and international partners,” he said. 

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
5 February 2006

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