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11 January 2021 | Story André Damons | Photo Supplied
Vincent Clarke
Dr Ralph Clark

The Afromontane Research Unit (ARU), the flagship research group of the University of the Free State (UFS) Qwaqwa Campus, has recently been granted R8,4 million to establish a Risk and Vulnerability Science Centre programme.

The Risk and Vulnerability Science Centre (RVSC) programme was established by the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) as part of the Global Change Research Plan for South Africa and is funded by the DSI through the National Research Foundation (NRF). The RVSC will focus on the need to generate and disseminate knowledge about risk and vulnerability on global change challenges faced by local policy makers/ governance structures and communities in South Africa.

Invited to participate  

Dr Ralph Clark, Director of the ARU, says the UFS, together with the University of Zululand and the Sol Plaatje University, has been invited to participate in Phase 2 of the RVSC programme. Dr Clark was approached by the DSI (on referral from the South African Environmental Observation Network – SAEON) in February 2020 regarding the potential for establishing a RVSC at the UFS Qwaqwa campus.

Subsequent interactions were held between the UFS and DSI, and in March 2020, the UFS formally accepted the DSI invitation. It has since been agreed that the RVSC: UFS will be hosted as a RVSC under the ARU umbrella, with dedicated personnel embedded at the UFS in this regard (internal processes and reporting) but reporting directly to the NRF regarding the RVSC.

Interest and support welcomed

Dr Clark welcomed this interest and support from the DSI-NRF, saying that the funds will further assist the UFS in growing its excellent and growing research portfolio and building more research capacity on this traditionally undergraduate-focused campus. “The RVSC will contribute to much-needed solutions in an area marked by major sustainability challenges and will assist in moving Phuthaditjhaba away from its negative apartheid history towards becoming a sustainable African mountain city,” says Dr Clark.

News Archive

Facilitation session for Extended Curriculum Project
2009-03-13

The Faculty of Humanities at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently held an academic facilitation session in its Extended Curriculum Project for first-year Sociology students on the Main Campus in Bloemfontein. The purpose of this project is to improve the throughput and pass rates in the B.A. and B.Soc.Sc. extended programmes, as the failure and dropout rates in the faculty are high, especially among first-year students and in the extended programmes themselves. This will be done by establishing a support system for students in their first year of study to help them with and support them in integrating skills with the academic content of the mainstream modules. These extended programmes were introduced in 2005 in an effort to provide students who are not sufficiently prepared for higher education with a better opportunity to be successful in their studies. This year the focus will be on the first-year students in these extended programmes. Pictured are the project facilitators: Ms Melanie Nel (2nd from left), Ms Puleng Maleho (4th from left) and Ms Bianca de Vos (6th from left), with some of the students.
Photo: Mangaliso Radebe

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