SANORD, on behalf of the Board would like to wish all our members Happy Holidays, a joyous Festive season and a succesful New Year.

For those who are privileged to go on a well deserved vacation, please travel safely and keep well. 

The conference will take place durign 5 - 7 December 2022. The theme for the 14th Annual Conference will be:

"Finding Solutions: the Nexus between SDG's and South-North Parternships-Challenges and Sucesses during the Covid-19 era."  Read More:

Please follow the link to see more of what the beautiful Province of Limpopo has in store for us in this video clip presented by the SANORD 2022 Conference host the University of Limpopo. Learn More:

SANORD's 13th Annual Digital Conference was held on  7-10 September 2021, the first time in the history and life of SANORD that a conference was held on a digital platform. The event was co-hosted by Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) and the University of Bergen (UiB).

SANORD, on behalf of the Board would like to thank the Host Instiutions for hosting a very succesful event of a high standard.  The conference was well attended by 371 participants. 

We also take this opportunity to thank all the participants and members who attended a successful virtual conference. Although we were not able to come together in Bergen the virtual conference was a huge success. We look forward to seeing all our members and participants in Limpopo in 2022.

We are proud to announce that the applications for the Theme Group Projects as well as the Brian O'Connell Scholarships have been completed successfully and was announced on 30 November 2021.

Tampere University  Veera Koskue : Veera Koskue: "What you flush down the toilet might feed you in the future."

Tampere University’s candidate in the SANORD 3MT competition is Veera Koskue, who won Tampere University’s first 3MT competition.

The 3MT final was held as part of the Science Forum event on Saturday, January 23, 2021. The finalists performed live at Tampere Hall, and the audience watched the performances online. Read More:

SANORD is proud to welcome four new members to the network:

- University of Oulu                  -  Mzuzu University                                                                  -  Norweigian University of       Science and Technology

- University of Venda 

We warmly welcome our new members into our Network.

University of Oulu - more sustainable, more intelligent, more humane.

The University of Oulu is an international science university which creates new knowledge, well-being and innovations for the future through research and education. The University of Oulu, founded in 1958, is one of the biggest and the most multidisciplinary universities in Finland.

In all its activities, the University of Oulu strives for excellent quality and high efficiency. Our researchers produce nearly 3000 scientific publications each year and several new research-driven startups arise yearly. Read More:

Established in 1997, Mzuzu University is a non-profit public higher-education institution located in the small city of Mzuzu (population range of 50,000-249,999 inhabitants), Northern Region.

Officially recognized by the National Council for Higher Education of Malawi, Mzuzu University (MZUNI) is a very small (uniRank enrollment range: 250-499 students) coeducational Malawian higher education institution.

Mzuzu University (MZUNI) offers courses and programs leading to officially recognized higher education degrees such as bachelor degrees, master degrees, doctorate degrees in several areas of study. See the uniRank degree levels and areas of study matrix below for further details.

MZUNI also provides several academic and non-academic facilities and services to students including a library, as well as administrative services. Read More:

Mzuzu University Graduation ceremony.

Would you like to know more about NTNU – Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

NTNU is a university with an international focus, with headquarters in Trondheim and campuses in Ålesund and Gjøvik.

NTNU has a main profile in science and technology, a variety of programmes of professional study, and great academic breadth that also includes the humanities, social sciences, economics, medicine, health sciences, educational science, architecture, entrepreneurship, art disciplines and artistic activities. Read More:

The University of Venda, situated in Thohoyandou in the scenic Vhembe district of the Limpopo Province of South Africa was established in 1982. The university has ever experienced tremendous growth and change. From its early years, staff members were drawn from various backgrounds in South Africa but by 1994 staff members were increasingly recruited from other African countries and overseas.

The presence on campus of staff from diverse backgrounds created a unique atmosphere and a fertile environment for new ideas and a capacity for change. During this time the institution remained a traditional university that offered a full-range of courses straddling the humanities, social sciences, natural and applied sciences. Read More:

An image depicting Campus life at the University of Venda.

Attention all students!

Are you interested in an international career? This might be the opportunity for you.

MSc European Forestry is an Erasmus+: Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree programme offered jointly by a Consortium of six leading universities from Austria, Finland (coordinator), France, Germany, Romania and Spain.

In addition, Associated Partner Universities from Canada, China and Brazil and several Associated Scientific and Industrial Partners from around Europe participate in the programme delivery.

Our programme is an avant-garde response to the needs of the world’s forestry and bioeconomy sectors.

Applications are now open. Apply between 1 December and 19 January. Read More:

Link to Studyinfo.fi and the application form: Form 

Information about the School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland. Graduates of MSc European Forestry programme are highly demanded by the labour market.

All our students graduate with the ability to work in multicultural environments and will possess the latest knowledge of forest management and policy-making in Europe.

For more informtaion regarding the MSc Forestry programme please visit the blog.MSc European Forestry blog

Seven prominent researchers at Stellenbosch University (SU) were honoured by the National Research Foundation (NRF) at the recent annual NRF Awards. The awards recognise and celebrate South African research excellence that advances science for the benefit of society. Read More:

FAPI and the Southern African-Nordic Centre SANORD organized a joint webinar around the theme of innovations for sustainable development.

The aim was to encourage members from both networks to hear about current collaborations and engaging in joint activities.

On this page, you can access the webinar recording and presentations.

Please check the webinar programme to get an introduction of the excellent speakers and the timing of the different presentations in the recording! Read More:

Please feel free to watch the recording here. Recording:

Emmie Chiyindiko from the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences and Tumelo Robert Sekee from the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Free State were victorious in the PhD category during this year’s Three-Minute Thesis Competition held on 1 October 2021. Read More:

Tumelo Robert Sekee from the Faculty of Health Sciences, 1st runner-up will be competing for big prize in the PhD category at the national leg of the competition and Emmie Chiyindiko, from the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, winner of the UFS 3MT Competition.

The Central University of Technology’s beer brewing team, CUTbrU has won the best African Wild Ale at this year’s Brewing and Tasting Intervarsity, which is co-hosted by SAB and CUT, through the Centre for Applied Food Security and – Biotechnology (CAFSaB) in association with UFS. Read More:

CUTbrU team win best African Wild Ale at Brewing and Tasting Intervarsity.

The  first Virtual UEF Open Day was held  on 25 November 2021 at 1 p.m. – 3.30 p.m. (Finnish time). The Virtual Open Day is a great way to find out more about our university. Read More:

International Students’ Day is a celebration of the way we are allinterconnected by our histories, aspirations and common humanity.

The University of the Western Cape (UWC) is committed to strengthening those connections - even in the midst of a global pandemic. Read More:

“Reflecting on my semester abroad, I realise how blessed I was to be selected for the exchange to the University of Missouri,” says Johan Fourie, a UWC alumnus who received the prestigious Henry Mitchell Fellowship, allowing him to spend a semester at UM.

Global Foodnet is a network that brings together food innovators in Kenya, Southern Africa, Peru and Finland developing foods from indigenous foods with indigenous knowledge.

Global Foodnet is formed by the University of Eastern Finland (UEF), the Centre of Innovation for Andean Grains (CIINCA) at the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina (UNALM), Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), University Innovations Global (UI) and the Southern Africa Network for Biosciences (SanBIO) .

Global Foodnet featured in University Innovation Global’s SouthVation webinar series, to tell the  stories of food innovation from indigenous foods with indigenous knowledge.

The webinar, "Bring Your Own Food Product", is the first in a three-part webinar series which will culminate into UI-SouthVation’s Challenge 2021.

The DUT academics and the DUT community gathered online to celebrate the sterling milestone of full professorship which was achieved by Prof Amonsou, a Food Science Professor in the Department of Biotechnology and Food Science, Faculty of Applied Sciences. Read More:

A research group at the University of Turku (UTU), Finland, has discovered a completely new mechanism that cells use to circulate integrins on the cell surface. Aggressive breast cancer cells exploit this mechanism to spread and metastasise to other parts of the body. Read More:

Pahanlaatuinen liikkuva rintasyöpäsolu A malignant migrating breast cancer cell. The cytoskeleton of the cell is shown in purple and the “circulating” integrins within the cell are in green. Photo: Paulina Moreno-Layseca and Turku Bioimaging.

An international team, led by Rhodes University Research Fellow, Dr Kenda Knowles, has just announced a comprehensive overview paper for the MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey (MGCLS), accompanied by the public release of a vast trove of curated data that astronomers worldwide can use to address a variety of challenging questions relating to the formation and evolution of galaxies throughout the universe. Read More:

Two giant radio galaxies (more than one million light-years from end to end) at the center of a large group of galaxies in the cluster Abell 194, revealing the presence of relatively narrow magnetic filaments in the region, as well as complex interactions between the radio emission from the two galaxies.

The MeerKAT radio image is shown in orange, with an optical image dominated by normal galaxies shown in white. Adapted from K. Knowles et al., “The MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey. I. Survey Overview and Highlights” (Astronomy & Astrophysics, in press). Image credit: SARAO, SDSS.

Teemu Ojanen, newly appointed professor of computational physics at Tampere University, is a passionate advocate for basic research.

He studies quantum condensed matter theory to shed light on the underlying mechanisms of the universe and discover how an improved understanding of these mechanisms could help us address global challenges. Read More:

Teemu Ojanen was nominated as Professor of computational physics at Tampere University in October 2021. Photo: Jonne Renvall / Tampere University.

Professor Jacqueline Goldin is an extra-ordinary associate professor of Anthropology and Water Sciences in the Centre of UNESCO Chair in Groundwater and Earth Sciences. Read More:

“I feel proud that we have managed to see how the project is transforming ordinary citizens in these remote areas from a passive state to engaging and becoming scientists themselves – and we have verified and validated the data which is accurate and can be used by government, planners and researchers,” said Prof Goldin.

The new generation advanced high-strength steels show promise when solving the challenges of light-weight design strategies and related fuel and emission saving applications. However, quantitative controls of steel quenching and partitioning, and industrial implementations are still at the early stage. It is mainly ascribed to the lack of a comprehensive understanding of the process down to quantum mechanical level. Read More:

University of Oulu researchers Professor Marko Huttula, Professor Jukka Kömi, Professor Mahesh Somani, Postdoctoral researcher Sakari Pallaspuro, Postdoctoral researcher Harishchandra Singh, Postdoctoral researcher Andrey Kistanov, Postdoctoral researcher Shubo Wang and Associate Professor (Tenure Track) Wei Cao.

The SANORD Central Office (SCO), would like to take this opportunity to THANK  all our members for your unfailing and ongoing support over the past year.

SCO operations can only be succesful with your hard work and support which is greatly valued and appreciated.

               Happy Holidays!!  Keep Well! Travel safely!!