An award of R5 million rand has been made to the DUT under the leadership of Prof Fulufhelo Netswera who is the Executive Dean: Faculty of Management Sciences.
The focus of the award is “Growth and sustainability of livelihoods in the BRICS countries” and focuses on knowledge sharing in the areas of social justice, governance and multilateralism.
The award is meant to run for the next 24 months starting 01 November 2022. The award is made by the BRICS Research Institute through the Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) that supports work of the South African BRICS Think Tank (SABTT).
The objectives of the BRICS Research Institutes are to undertake research endeavours within the BRICS Long Term Strategy thematic areas in any one of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India or China) and in comparison with South Africa, through holding seminars and work-shops, publishing books and journal articles and policy briefs, and fostering research networks at South African public universities and relevant institutions across the African continent and BRIC countries.
The current award is a scale up of the BRICS engagements work that started last year (2021) with an award of R500,000 – for 12 months that ran between November 2021 and October 2022 through four themes of Entrepreneurship, BRICS Agriculture, BRICS Financing Instruments, Climate Change and Entrepreneurship. Having worked historically as the Director of South African BRICS Think Tank, Prof Netswera is acutely aware of the dynamics of multilateral institutional arrangements and cognisant of the importance of the shifting political and economic multilateral institutions. He had put the first grant jointly with Dr Ndivhuho Tshikovhi who is a current postdoctoral fellow at DUT and has historically chaired BRICS youth forums until recently.
The current award brings together seasoned academics from all the BRICS nations representing their countries and their institutions as follows:
Brazil: Prof Elton Fernandes (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), Prof Bruno Conti (Campinas University); China: Prof Xiaolong Zou (Jilin University), Prof Jienjin Zhu (Fudan University), India: Prof Anukrati Sharma (University of Kota); Russia: Prof Maria Apanovich (Moscow State Institute of International Relations), Prof Sergei Smirnov (Saint Petersburg State University) and South Africa: Prof Ravinder Rena, Prof Fulufhelo Netswera and Dr Ndivhuho Tshikovhi all from the DUT.
Pictured: Prof Fulufhelo Netswera, Prof Sarah Mosoetsa, Chief Executive Officer, (NIHSS) and Dr Ndivhuho Tshikovhi.
It is expected that through this grant, the research team and through their institutional affiliations will meet the following minimum obligations through people to people and cultural exchanges:
- Produce twenty (20) journal articles,
- Two (2) conference papers and four (4) books,
- Contribute towards capacity building of twenty (20) Masters and twenty (20) Doctoral students
- Host three (3) conferences, two (2) postgraduate forums, one (1) BRICS Summer School, one (1) BRICS dialogue and one (1) workshop, and
- Conduct fieldwork research from the BRICS countries.
On behalf of the entire BRICS team involved in this project, Prof Netswera thanks the support extended by the Durban University of Technology (DUT) and other universities where participating scholars are affiliated. He equally wants to encourage members of the BRICS family to work jointly together towards a more just and equitable economic and political global multilateral arrangements and believes that works of this nature an only usher that possible future.
Giving her congratulatory message was the Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation & Engagement, Prof Keolebogile Motaung.
” I am so pleased to see you Prof accomplishing great things. Congratulations on a job well done. I am so excited for you and wish you the very best! I am wishing you even more grants to come to DUT in the future. Well done Prof!”
Pictured: Executive Dean: Faculty of Management Sciences, Prof Fulufhelo Netswera,
Story: Supplied by the Faculty of Management Sciences
