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UFS Job Shadows in Germany

20 July 2022 | Story Nonkululeko Nxumalo | Photo Supplied

UFS Academic staff job shadow in Germany — From the left: Helene van der Merwe (Lecturer: Sustainable Food Systems and Development), Herkulaas Combrink (Lecturer: Economic and Management Sciences, and Interim Co-director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Futures), Prof Dirk Fornahl (Research associate/researcher at Friedrich Schiller University Jena), Dr Karen Booysen (Lecturer: Business Management), Ketshepileone Matlhoko (Junior Lecturer: Sustainable Food Systems and Development), Gretha Lotz (Technopolis intern), Prof Johan van Niekerk (HOD: Sustainable Food Systems and Development), Prof Katinka de Wet (Associate Professor: Sociology, and Interim Co-director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Futures)

A group of academic staff and PhD students from the University of the Free State (UFS) recently visited the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU) in Germany for a three-week (27 May-16 June 2022) regional innovation training workshop and job shadowing. The opportunity was extended to the university’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Futures (ICDF) as well as the faculties of Natural and Agricultural Sciences and Economic and Management Sciences.

Building a regional innovation cluster for agriculture

With this training, the UFS, in collaboration with the FSU, the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), the Department of Small Business Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (DESTEA), the Department of Agriculture (DOA), and other industry partners, aims to build a regional innovation cluster for agriculture in the South African perspective that drives innovation, technology advancement, and trade methodology among academic institutions, the government, and industries.

“The collaboration between the UFS and the FSU will have significant benefits for both universities in terms of knowledge sharing and learning. However, the biggest benefit of this project is to build a better community, facilitate innovative solutions for future challenges, and provide academic collaborations,” said Herkulaas Combrink, Interim Co-director of the ICDF.

Another regional innovation cluster in the agricultural sector is arranged within the Cape Winelands region and is centred on wine and liquor production. The projects between the UFS and the relevant stakeholders will grow other agricultural spheres such as textiles, livestock, and diverse crop irrigation.

“We are interested in a broad topic focused on climate change in the challenging context of developmental issues, inequalities, pressing issues of food insecurity, and demands/ opportunities brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” Prof Katinka de Wet, Interim Co-director of the ICDF, highlighted.

According to Combrink, the UFS has been engaging online and in person with academic staff from FSU since 2021 to build the skills and capacity to drive this regional innovation.

“Academic institutions, government, and industry rely on these integral bridges to drive a sustainable digital future as well as to capacitate the next generation with the skills to increase the level of innovation required to remain relevant in the context of tomorrow,” he also said.

News Archive

Extraordinary professor appointed

2005-11-10

UFS appoints its first extraordinary professor for health systems research and development

Prof Dingie van Rensburg (Director: Centre for Health Systems Research and Development at the UFS) and Prof Helen Schneider (senior researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand's Centre for Health Policy and extraordinary professor at the UFS Centre for Health Systems Research and Development). Photo: L Loader

The Centre for Health Systems Research and Development (CHSR&D) at the University of the Free State (UFS) has appointed its first extraordinary professor.

Prof Helen Schneider, former director of the Centre for Health Policy at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) and currently senior researcher in that Centre and consultant in the WITS School of Public Health, was appointed by CHSR&D for a period of two years.

“Prof Schneider is widely known for her thorough experience, expertise and exposure in the field of public health, health policy and management and health policy and systems research. We are honoured to have her join us as an extraordinary professor,” said Prof Dingie van Rensburg, Director of CHSR&D.

Prof Schneider will be involved in various components of the CHSR&D’s long-term project on public sector anti-retroviral treatment (ART) and will also assist in the documenting, monitoring, evaluating and facilitation of the implementation of the national treatment plan in the Free State. She is also assisting the Gauteng Department of Health in a similar way.

“The two provinces are actually so different. They provide a different window on the realities of HIV/AIDS and the intellectual traditions involved in it,” said Prof Schneider. “I hope to contribute meaningfully to finding new dimensions for research necessary in order to optimise the contribution and effect of the research on ART,” said Prof Schneider.

Another need for Prof Schneider’s appointment is to strengthen the senior research capacity of the CHSR&D, guide them with the ART project and assist in the implementation of research results into policy, management and practice.

Media release
Issued by:Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
9 November 2005

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