Cape Town – A researcher at the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at Stellenbosch University (SU), Associate Professor Josephine Kaviti Musango, was recognised for her research when she was awarded one of only two research chairs in South Africa by a trilateral research chair initiative.
Musango, of the Faculty’s School of Public Leadership, obtained the chair through the SA-Africa-UK Trilateral South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI).
The SA-Africa-UK Trilateral SARChI is supported by South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology through the National Research Foundation and the British Council. It promotes collaboration between research and academic centres of excellence in South Africa, the UK and an African country.
The key objectives of the SA-Africa-
UK Trilateral SARChI research chair are to build capacity across Africa by enabling mobility of African students and technical support staff to SARChI research chairs in South Africa, the UK and an African country, provide mentorship and support PhD co-
supervision, contribute toward increasing the output of PhDs in South Africa, and build new links between SA-Africa-UK higher education and research institutions.
Musango was appointed the chair in May following an application process that started in July 2018. The chair will be officially launched in October.
She said being awarded as the chair was recognition for her research efforts - inspired during her transdisciplinary doctoral work at Stellenbosch.
As the chair, Musango will collaborate with Dr Amollo Ambole of the University of Nairobi in Kenya and
Dr Fabrizio Ceschin of the Brunel University, London, to develop and advance evidence-based research under the cross-cutting theme of “Gender Mainstreaming”, and the trilateral chair name of “Mainstreaming Gender for Energy Security in Poor Urban Environments”.
She said by unpacking the three keywords of “Mainstreaming Gender”, “Energy Security” and “Urban Poor Environments”, they intended to utilise gender mainstreaming as a strategy to achieve energy security in poor urban societies.
“The overall objective of the Trilateral SARChI Chair during the first five years is to explore gendered innovations and commercialised energy opportunities in poor urban societies through two case studies in Nairobi and Cape Town,” Musango said
Musango was awarded the accolade despite the trilateral research chair normally only being awarded to researchers who are full professors.