Within the framework of the agreement on scientific and technological cooperation between the
governments of the Republic of India and the Republic of South Africa signed in Pretoria on 19 July
1995 and renewed in 2007, the Joint Committee meeting was held in 15 November 2011 in Pretoria,
South Africa. Under this framework of cooperation we are pleased to announce the call for joint
research project proposals between South African and Indian scientists / researchers, and invite
scientists/ researchers of the two countries wishing to participate, to submit their joint proposals by the
indicated due date.
The National Research Foundation (NRF) as IIASA’s National Member Organisation (NMO), in collaboration with the De-partment of Science and Technology (DST) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), is pleased to announce the second joint Call for Supervisors in continuing the Southern African Young Scientists Summer Programme (SA-YSSP). The Programme was launched by the former Minister of Science and Technology in November 2011. The SA-YSSP is an annual three-month education, academic training, and research capacity-building programme jointly organised by the NRF, DST, and IIASA. The University of the Free State successfully hosted the inaugural SA-YSSP during 2012-13, and will again host the second SA-YSSP during 2013-14.
The trilateral India/Brazil/South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum was established following a meeting of Foreign Ministers representing the three countries in Brasilia in June 2003 for the purposes of pursuing increased South-South collaboration between three of the hemisphere’s largest and most prominent democracies and representing three of the world’s five continents. Issuing from that meeting the Brasilia Declaration identified Science and Technology as one of the key areas for greater trilateral interaction and cooperation, their implementation to be shepherded by the Science and Technology Ministers of India, Brazil and South Africa through annual meetings aimed at establishing the modalities of collaboration, identifying priority areas and flagship projects to be supported and making recommendations concerning the more effective pursuit of integrated activity in the fields of Research and Development.
The primary focus of the programme is to generate, co-ordinate and make accessible foundational biodiversity knowledge in line with the needs of society, the Department of Science & Technology (DST) Global Change Programme and the bioeconomy. The priority knowledge needs relate to species occurrence, species identity, population abundance, and phylogenetic / DNA information, including barcoding. This type of information is often referred to as “fundamental” or “foundational” because it forms the basis of so many other aspects of biodiversity research and decision-making.
The National Research Foundation (NRF) is calling for proposals from public universities and public research institutions to host DST-NRF Centres of Excellence (CoEs). The host institutions MUST have existing capacity and resources to enable researchers to collaborate across disciplines and institutions on long-term projects that are locally relevant and internationally competitive in order to enhance the pursuit of research excellence and
capacity development.
The Netherlands and South Africa have a joint interest in promoting and strengthening scientific cooperation in Astronomy (including Enabling Technologies for Astronomy). To facilitate collaboration between researchers in the two countries, The National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa and The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) have agreed to establish an exchange programme.
