At the Board and Council meetings in Karlstad the following decisions were taken:

1. SANORD Theme Group Seed funding 2014
The outcomes of the SANORD Theme Group Seed funding will be available on 1st September 2014.

2. Publication
The Publications committee is currently in the process of gathering papers from the 2013 Malawi conference and 2014 Karlstad Symposium for a new publication (e-publication/open access). The papers will undergo a peer review process and the publication will be launched at the 2015 Polytechnic of Namibia conference. 

3. New Vice Chairperson
Uppsala University was elected as the new Vice Chairperson for SANORD for the period 2015–2016. Uppsala is happy and looks forward to take up their new role.

4. New Board members
SANORD announced the new board members elected for the 2015–2016 period as follows:
Members in the SADC region: Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), University of Botswana (UB), and University of Namibia (UNAM); and in the North: Aarhus University (AAU), University of Bergen (UIB), and University of Eastern Finland (UEF) in place of University of Jyväskylä (JYU). The core members were retained for the purpose of continuity.

5. Karlstad Symposium update
Karlstad University reported the following:
The 75 registered delegates were regarded as a good attendance, with three keynote speakers, 38 parallel sessions and 4 workshops out of the 38 sessions. The presentations stimulated very interesting debates and valuable discussions. The symposium was a great success.

6. Brian O’Connell Scholarship Programme
At the SANORD Council meeting in June, a decision was taken to honour Prof Brian O’Connell, Rector and Vice-chancellor of the University of the Western Cape by renaming the “Partial Scholarship Funding Programme” to the "Brian O’ Connell Scholarship Programme".

This is in recognition of the fact that Prof O’Connell was instrumental in the further development of the Nordic and Southern African collaborations and the establishment of the SANORD Centre with Sigmund Gronmo, the then Rector of the University of Bergen.

The seven scholarships made available by SANORD to its members aim to enhance the knowledge experiences and collaborations between SANORD members. The invitation for the scholarship will be sent to the SANORD contact persons at your institution for distribution soon. > Read more

Board & Council meetings announcements:

1. SANORD celebrates 10 years in 2017. An ad hoc working committee was established for the planning of the event.

2. University of Malawi celebrates 50 years in 2015.

SANORD International Conference 2015 will be held at Polytechnic of Namibia, Windhoek from 1st–3rd December 2015. More information and the thematic focus of the conference will be announced in due course.

The SANORD Central Office (SCO) has recently welcomed a new student intern, Hanna Lehtinen. Hanna is an MA student at the University of Turku, Finland, and majors in Comparative Religion. She is currently writing her MA thesis on identity and political communication. Her other subjects of study include Sociology and Sustainable Development, and she is especially interested in science communication, sustainability, and intercultural dialogue. > Read more 

Place and date of the workshop: Cape Town, 9th–11th February 2015
Abstracts submission deadline: 11th September 2014

The workshop –"The democratic developmental state-Southern African and Nordic experiences”– is organised by the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP), SANORD, UiB Global at University of Bergen, and the School of Government at the University of the Western Cape.

The selected papers will be discussed, peer-reviewed, published and widely disseminated across SANORD and CROP/International Social Science Council (ISSC) networks.

The call is open to researchers around the world. Chosen participants will participate actively in presentations and discussions of all papers throughout the workshop.

> Read more and download the call for papers here

Deadline for submission: 1.00 pm (South African time), 8th August 2014

INSPIRE is an Erasmus Mundus project, coordinated by Uppsala University and the University of the Western Cape and funded by the European Commission.

The project is looking for talented South African University students to help them create their marketing profile that would appeal to their peers! The winner will be awarded 1000 EUR, issued a certificate of best contribution to the competition and will be mentioned on the project website "www.uu.se/mundus/inspire" (forthcoming) for the duration of the project (2014–2018).

> For information and rules of the competition, visit the project website

Submission deadline: 31st July 2014

The Stellenbosch University Graduate School of Economic and Management Sciences (GEM) is accepting applications for its full-time PhD programme for 2015. Application details, procedures and forms are available at www.sun.ac.za/english/faculty/economy/gem.

> Read more and download the call here

IEASA 18th Annual Conference –The Internationalisation of Higher Education in a World of Geo-political Reorganisation– will be held from 20th–23rd August 2014 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

> Click here to register for the conference

> Further conference information can be found on IEASA website

The course will be implemented by Finland Futures Academy (FFA) and Museology and European Ethnology (School of History, Culture and Arts Studies), University of Turku, in cooperation with the European Regional Foresight College (ERFC) and the European Millennium Project Nodes Initiative (EuMPI). It is offered for masters and post-graduate students during May–September 2015, with the idea of sharing teaching resources, learning modes and course contents between the partner universities. > Read more

Finland Futures Research Centre has published two climate change related energy reports: “Energy models and scenarios in the era of climate change” and “Energy Revolution in Cuba: Pioneering for the Future?”. The reports are part of a project funded by EuropeAid which has been implemented in nine EU countries by a consortium of seven European civil society organisations and research institutes.

> Read the report: Energy Models and Scenarios in the Era of Climate Change. Briefing Report. -Joni Karjalainen, Mira Käkönen, Jyrki Luukkanen and Jarmo Vehmas
> Read the report: Energy Revolution in Cuba: Pioneering for the Future? -Mira Käkönen, Hanna Kaisti and Jyrki Luukkanen

Dr. Miettinen is a researcher of geographical and historical studies at the University of Eastern Finland. In this article, Dr. Miettinen shares some preliminary results of his post-doctoral research project, titled “Understandings and practices of masculinities among the Ovambo of Northern Namibia in late precolonial and early colonial periods”. His discoveries in the constituency of masculinities in the context of Ovambo, Northern Namibia, enrich gender research in African context. > Read more

Prof Hayman Russel Botman, Rector and Vice-chancellor of Stellenbosch University passed away in his sleep at his home in Stellenbosch in the evening of 27 June, 2014.

Prof Leopoldt van Huyssteen, the Chief Operating Officer of Stellenbosch University, will serve as acting rector until the Executive Committee of Council meets in July. > Read more

Four University of Pretoria (UP) researchers have emerged as winners of their respective categories in the NSTF-BHP Billiton Awards Ceremony held at Emperor’s Palace on 3 July 2014. They are “tree doctor” Prof Brenda Wingfield, genomics expert Prof Don Cowan, bat researcher Prof Wanda Markotter and audiologist Prof De Wet Swanepoel. The annual NSTF-BHP Billiton Awards Ceremony is widely recognised as South Africa’s “Science Oscars”, honouring achievers in scientific research and related activities. > Read more

Debra Deel, a television programme which aims to make science more accessible to the public at large, started on Wednesday, 9 July at 20:30 on KykNET. The programme is the brainchild of Prof Debra Meyer, acclaimed researcher and Head of the Department of Biochemistry in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Pretoria. She is also the programme presenter. Prof Meyer is a familiar face on television – she was the weather presenter on SABC 2 for more than twelve years. > Read more

During 2008–2010, the Transforming Curriculum Delivery
through Technology Programme investigated the potential
for technology to support more flexible and creative models
of curriculum delivery. This publication captures outcomes
from individual projects and summarises the key points
emerging from the programme.

Outcomes from the Transforming Curriculum Delivery Through Technology programme provide a rich insight into the ways in which institutions and individual curriculum areas can make use of technology to respond more robustly to the demands of a changing world. The programme’s focus on challenges ensures its outcomes reflect the real-world issues faced by universities and colleges as they strive to deliver high-quality learning in difficult economic times.

> Read more about the programme

> Find out more at Transforming Curriculum Delivery through
Technology Programme and The Design Studio

SANORD web portal has a new function now: Event Calendar, where you can view the SANORD activities happening in the central office as well as on the campus of our members. With just a few clicks, you can add SANORD events into your Google calendar.

> Click here to see where can you find it on our web portal.