RoRI welcomes the National Research Foundation of South Africa and a British Academy International Fellowship

RoRI’s strategic priorities and projects are determined by its Partnership Board, made up of its Core Partners. Following a recent board meeting, we are delighted to announce that the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF-SA) has joined RoRI as our 18th Core Partner.

With a USD 400m annual budget, the NRF is the main public sector agency tasked with providing funding across the research system in South Africa. As the largest funder of human capital development in the country, through its Research, Innovation and Impact Support and Advancement (RIISA) programme, the NRF offers funding opportunities along the entire research pipeline – from emerging to established researchers.

On joining RoRI, Dr Thandi Mgwebi, Group Executive: Business Advancement at the NRF said:

The NRF believes that significant effort needs to be made to ensure that a global research ecosystem considers all the growing concerns and challenges, and that it responds to them in a timely and enabling way. 

The NRF sees RoRI as an important opportunity to join a group of funders reflecting on opportunities and challenges in support of metascience, and to add the voice of a public funder based on the African continent to the discussions on shaping research culture differently.

From January 2025, RoRI will further strengthen links with South Africa through a newly-announced British Academy International Fellowship for Dr Similo Ngwenya, who is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Scientometrics and STI Policy and CREST (Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology) at Stellenbosch University. 

One of only 12 International Fellowships to be awarded by the British Academy in 2024, Dr Ngwenya will be based at RoRI and STEaPP-UCL for two years, undertaking her project, ‘Shaping the Future: Social Science Research for Progress in Southern Africa.’

British Academy International Fellowships provide exceptional early career researchers from around the world with the opportunity to spend two years at a UK university of their choice –  to transfer skills and knowledge, and encourage long-term relationships and collaborations.

Commenting on this news, James Wilsdon, Executive Director of RoRI said:

 “We are thrilled to welcome the NRF as a RoRI partner, and excited to work with and learn from Dr Thandi Mgwebi and colleagues about opportunities and priorities for metascience in South Africa.

I’d also like to offer my warmest congratulations to Dr Similo Ngwenya on her prestigious British Academy International Fellowship, and say how much the RoRI team enthusiastically looks forward to her joining us at UCL in January. Our thanks to the British Academy for their investment in Similo, who will make an invaluable contribution to RoRI’s work.“

Reflecting where these debates have been most visible, RoRI’s consortium has been weighted towards partners in Europe, the US, Canada and Australia. But metascience is on the move worldwide, and I know that RoRI’s work will be hugely enriched by our collaborations with the NRF and with Similo. I hope this is just the beginning of our work with partners from Africa and across the Global South.