The Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, Derek Hanekom, officiated the launch of the Africa Centre for Climate and Earth Systems Science, which is hosted by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The event was held at the University of the Western Cape in their recently opened Life Sciences Building.
The Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation (DST/NRF) Centres of Excellence (CoEs) are physical or virtual centres of research which concentrate existing capacity and resources to enable researchers to collaborate across disciplines on long term projects that are locally relevant and internationally competitive in order to enhance the pursuit of research excellence and capacity development.
Global change and the associated global warming and climate change impacts are now a pressing environmental security issue rooted in the energy consumption that maintains our traditional economic development and wealth creation. Therefore the debate on responding to environmental challenges demands a sound and objective scientific basis for decision making.
The reduction of the uncertainties in the availability of information concerning future climate projections in the short and longer time is a high priority and must be balanced with pressing current needs for development which include the alleviation of poverty and the threats posed by current environmental variability (such as floods, storms, droughts and the changing demography of disease, the global change threats to biodiversity and arable land).
It is in this context that the DST is launching the Africa Centre for Climate and Earth Systems Science (ACCESS) thereby providing a novel platform on which global and regional environmental challenges can be investigated, with the resultant useful products for decision makers.
Speaking at the launch event, the Deputy Minister of Science and Technology said “there is an increasing appreciation of the catalytic and transformative role of science and technology. South African science and scientists are making valuable contributions to the scientific understanding of climate and environmental change on the African continent and there are existing strong programmes and partnerships.
“As the DST and a country, we have been called upon to play a role in strengthening science and technology within the continent. We are doing this in many ways including the development of an African bid for the SKA. The programmes of ACCESS, in terms of research and human capital development, will play a vital role in this regard,” he said.
“ACCESS as a Centre of Excellence has a key role to play in the successful implementation of the Global Change Grand Challenge. It has been identified as one of the major flagship initiatives that will help us to advance scientific knowledge in South Africa and, very importantly, to play a major role in growing and developing the base of new, emerging and established researchers, particularly new black researchers and women. We will be watching ACCESS closely in this regard to ensure that it helps to deliver on a key national imperative of building skills and knowledge,” the minister said.
ACCESS is a “development through science” programme which seeks to inspire optimism with the promise of a better future. The main outcome that it seeks is to provide education opportunities, since education is the key to upliftment and innovation. To that end ACCESS intends to be a centre of excellence that warrants international recognition and that draws the local and international students to studies of our planet and its management and indeed produces the decision makers of the future.
ACCESS is a consortium of research institutions and agencies and an exciting collection of these have signed up to contribute to a whole greater than the sum of its parts. These include the Universities of the Western Cape, Pretoria, Stellenbosch, Witwatersrand, Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal and Rhodes along with the South African Weather Service, South African Biodiversity Institute, Agricultural Research Council, Geosciences Research Council, the South African Environmental Observation Network and the CSIR the official hosts. The secretariat will be set up at the Center for High Performance Computing at the CSIR Campus in Rosebank.
Collaborations with other regional institutes, agencies and programmes in the continent are being developed and the programme is initiating international collaboration with several international partners including Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research (BCCR) [WB@1]<https://howebmail3.dst.gov.za/owa/?ae=PreFormAction&a=Forward&t=IPM.Note&id=RgAAAACIxasS9xBhRZYoTBWnQnNABwBOtaHLCiZ2RZ9124%2fipvA6AAAAL5SfAABAipeUynFOQr3qwybYvMD6AAnph6cfAAAJ#_msocom_1> at the University of Bergen in Norway.[WB@2]<https://howebmail3.dst.gov.za/owa/?ae=PreFormAction&a=Forward&t=IPM.Note&id=RgAAAACIxasS9xBhRZYoTBWnQnNABwBOtaHLCiZ2RZ9124%2fipvA6AAAAL5SfAABAipeUynFOQr3qwybYvMD6AAnph6cfAAAJ#_msocom_2>
ACCESS has already implemented a research programme with several projects focused on a number of earth system issues; a services programme which will develop a series of products for utilisation by service providers and implementing its educational programme which includes a bursary programme, winter school and national masters programme.
For additional information, please contact:
Nthabi Maoela
Cell: 082 944 0015
Dr Neville Sweijd
Tel: 021 888 2555
