Dr Fulufhelo Nelwamondo Appointed to the Belmont Forum

The NRF is pleased to announce the election of Dr Fulufhelo Nelwamondo, CEO, to the Steering Committee of the Belmont Forum.

The NRF is a founding member of this prominent group. Established in 2009, the Belmont Forum is a partnership of funding organisations, international science councils, and regional consortia committed to the advancement of transdisciplinary science. Forum operations are guided by the Belmont Challenge, a vision document that encourages “International transdisciplinary research providing knowledge for understanding, mitigating and adapting to global environmental change”.

Forum members and partner organisations work collaboratively to meet the Belmont Challenge by issuing international calls for proposals, committing to best practices for open data access, and providing transdisciplinary training. 

The NRF is particularly active in having coordinated several Collaborative Research Actions (CRA), including the current one on Migration and Mobility, as well as the CRA for Ocean Sustainability. In addition, the NRF manages a notable contribution by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) to facilitate the participation of 5 African countries in the Ocean Sustainability CRA.

Through his leadership, Dr Nelwamondo brings significant international networks of the NRF to the Forum, including the FutureEarth Regional Office for Africa, the African Open Science Platform, and the Science Granting Councils Initiative in Sub-Saharan Africa, amongst others.

Dr Gansen Pillay, DCEO RISA, has served for two terms on the Steering Committee, escalating the NRF’s and Africa’s engagement exponentially. The programme is managed by Knowledge Advancement and Support (KAS), directed by Tracy Klarenbeek and Jonathan Diedericks.

South Africa will host the Sustainability Research and Innovation Congress (SRI), an initiative co-hosted by the Belmont Forum and FutureEarth during June 2022 at the Future Africa Institute of the University of Pretoria. SRI is a prominent transdisciplinary gathering in sustainability, creating opportunity for fierce advocacy for sustainability scholarship, innovation, collaboration, and action.

Since its establishment, the Forum has successfully led 17 calls for proposals, supporting 134 projects and more than 1,000 scientists and stakeholders, representing over 90 countries.  Themes addressed by CRAs have included Freshwater Security, Coastal Vulnerability, Food Security and Land Use Change, Climate Predictability and Inter-Regional Linkages, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Arctic Observing and Science for Sustainability, and Mountains as Sentinels of Change. New themes are developed through a scoping process and made available for proposals through the Belmont Forum website and its BF Grant Operations site.