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31 July 2020
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As a public higher-education institution in South Africa with a responsibility to contribute to public discourse, the University of the Free State (UFS) will be presenting the 3rd UFS Thought-Leader Series in collaboration with Vrye Weekblad as part of the Vrystaat Literature Festival’s online initiative, VrySpraak-digitaal.
This year, higher-education institutions
globally are placed in the challenging context of COVID-19. Aware and grounded in the reality that the world will not return to the normality of pre-COVID-19, our responsibility as scholars still remains to contribute to public discourse and to offer
innovative solutions that will impact the lives of people nationally and globally in order to help them understand and adapt to a new world order.
Against this background and context, this year’s debates focus on ‘Post-COVID-19, Post-Crisis’,
with Health and Modelling, Politics, Economy, and Predictions for 2021 as the sub-themes. Placed in a COVID-19 context, and in lieu of the Vrystaat Arts Festival,
the series will be presented virtually in the form of one webinar per month during the period August 2020 to November 2020.
Date: 13 August 2020
Topic: Health
and Modelling
Time: 11:30-13:00
RSVP: Alicia Pienaar, pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za
Facilitator:
Max du Preez
Editor: Vrye Weekblad
Biography
Introduction and welcome:
Prof Francis Petersen
Rector and Vice-Chancellor, UFS
Panellists:
Prof Salim Abdool Karim
Director: Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA)
Chair: South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19
Biography
Prof Glenda Gray
President and CEO: South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC)
Biography
Prof Felicity Burt
NRF-DST South African Research Chair in vector-borne and zoonotic pathogens research
Biography
International success for UFS Professor in Japan
2016-12-07
Prof Hussein Solomon from the UFS was recently
appointed as Visiting Professor at Osaka University
in Japan.
Photo: Charl Devenish
He has been involved with the Osaka University for several years, but Prof Hussein Solomon’s recent appointment as Visiting Professor will allow the University of the Free State (UFS) and Osaka to work on long-term issues.
Kovsie academics hold their own internationally
His appointment at the university in Japan came as no surprise as he is a regular teacher to students and leader of seminars to staff. According to Prof Solomon, Senior Professor at the Department of Political Studies and Governance at the UFS, Kovsie academics can hold their own internationally.
The Faculty of Humanities has a memorandum of understanding with Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), which consists of Political Science, Public Administration, Law and Economics at Osaka University.
Enhancing the universities’ relationship
“I have been involved with Osaka since 2007, initially with their Global Collaboration Center (GLOCOL), focusing on conflict resolution, and then later with OSIPP.”
Although Prof Solomon has been working with Osaka for a while, his appointment will enhance the relationship between the universities.
“We have been cooperating with Osaka for some time, hosting annual conferences, engaging in staff and student exchanges, as well as the establishment of the international centre. This appointment allows us to work on longer-term issues allowing us to chase funding together and deepen our existing linkages,” he says.
UFS doctoral students being jointly supervised
Prof Solomon says that he would like to see the doctoral students from the UFS being jointly supervised. “We already have one of our doctorial students, Alta Vermeulen, who is being co-supervised between myself and Prof Virgil Hawkins from Osaka,” he says.
Prof Solomon was also recently appointed to the board of flagship journal, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).