Upcoming Events:

SANORD Conference 2018: The local conference committee of University of Jyväskylä completed the selection of abstract process. The selected abstract owners have been informed about their acceptance.  Online Registration is now open and we urge all prospective delegates to register online to benefit from the Early BIrd registration fee, deadline is 31 May 2018. Various Registration fee rates are available to Southern African, Nordics, Students/Doctorals and non-SANORD members. Please find more information about the conference programme, registration and practicalities on the conference website:   http://www.jyu.fi/sanord2018

SANORD 2018 Partner Days: Prior to the Annual SANORD Conference, SANORD Partner Days are organized on the 13th August 2018, by all 3 Finnish SANORD member universities, providing the conference participants an opportunity to visit and explore the partnerships with the wider SANORD community in Finland. Partner days will be organized by University of Eastern Finland, University of Tampere and University of Turku. For more details see partner day outlines on the conference website or contact the partner day organizers. Read more:

UniPID - Finnish University Partnership for International Development

FinCEAL Infobank: Are you looking for Finnish academic partnerships? Check out and search for Finnish expertise in the FinCEAL Infobank, a multidisciplinary database of research and capacity building projects carried out by the Finnish research community on/in/with Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. The purpose of the Infobank is to facilitate knowledge exchange, communication and cooperation opportunities between the research communities in the above mentioned regions and Finland. The database can be found here: http://www.unipid.fi/infobank/

The first world conference on Sorghum in over 30 years will be hosted jointly by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sorghum and Millet of Kansas State University, USA, and the University of Pretoria (UP) in April 2018.

Prof John Taylor and Dr Janet Taylor of the Department of Consumer and Food Science at UP are serving respectively as Chair and Secretary of the local South African organising committee of this conference with the theme 'Sorghum in the 21st Century: Food, Feed and Fuel in a Rapidly Changing World'.view this email in your browserRead more

UiB is the eighth most quoted university in the world within Humanities, according to a new ranking from Times Higher Education. “Although scholars of Humanities like ourselves tend to take these kind of rankings with a pinch of salt, I must admit it is encouraging news”, says Jørgen Sejersted, Dean at Faculty of Humanities, UiB. Read more:

Top ten most quoted: Dean at Faculty of Humanities Jørgen Sejersted finds it encouraging that UiB is the eighth most quoted university in the world within humanities. Here togehter with Anne Beate Maurseth, Vice Dean of Research and Communication.

At the beginning of 2019, the Faculty of Social Sciences (SOC) of the University of Tampere will participate in the publication of NORA  -  Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. For 2019 – 2020, the editorial office of the journal will transfer to Finland from the University of Oslo, and the three editors will come from the University of Tampere.

Published by Taylor & Francis, NORA is a prestigious journal in its field. It is placed in the second highest classification for leading journals in the Finnish Publication Forum (JUFO). Read more:

Workshop participants: University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, February 2018

The International Association of Universities (IAU), a global Higher Education membership-based organisation under the auspices of UNESCO is currently conducting its 5th Global Survey on Internationalization of Higher Education.

This is the longest running internationalization survey of its type, with the first survey being undertaken in 2003. More information and executive summaries of all surveys are available at                        https://www.iau-aiu.net/Internationalization?onglet=2  https://www.iau-aiu.net/Internationalization?onglet=2

Please take the survey in:

English at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BB97JTJ
French at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BB97JTJ?lang=fr
Spanish at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BB97JTJ?lang=es

Three scientists at the School of Social Sciences at the University of Iceland and their Nordic partners have received a grant of 120 million Kronur from Nordforsk to research the impact of the threat of terrorism on citizens, and the impact of counter-terrorism legislation on people's views on democracy, and their trust towards the authorities. Read more:

UCT has been ranked among the top 50 universities in the world in three subjects in the 2018 QS World University Rankings by Subject: Development Studies, Geography and Sport. A further eight subjects are in the top 100. Read more:

With 11 subjects in the top 100 of the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2018, UCT graduates have every reason to be proud of their Alma Mater.

FameLab is one of the biggest science communication competitions in the world where young scientists get the opportunity to present scientific concepts to the general audience in three minutes. In South Africa, the competition is led by the British Council, South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA) and Jive Media Africa. Read more:

From left: Ms Refilwe Moleyane, Academic Exchange Coordinator: International Office (judge); Ms Mamosa Makaya, Deputy Director: Communications at UFS (judge); Ms Sylvia Mokuoane from CUT (winner), Prof. Alfred Ngowi, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research Innovation and Engagement; Dr Vanessa Agbedahin from UFS: Centre for Research on Higher Education and Development panellist (UFS), and Ms Emmie Chiyindiko from UFS (winner).

The Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA) has launched a new visualisation facility at the University of Cape Town: a shared space where astronomers from around the country can explore their data – and find answers to some of the biggest questions about our universe.

This is particularly relevant ahead of the development of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) – an international effort to build the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope in South Africa and Australia. This project, which will generate data at an unprecedented rate, signals a new frontier in data-intensive research. Read more:

A team of South African researchers which includes researchers from the University of Pretoria (UP) recently completed a study aimed at unlocking the unique genetic character of southern African populations.

Professor Michael Pepper, (picture) Director of the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine, and a Professor in the Department of Immunology in the Faculty of Health Sciences.

The study involved the genetic sequencing of 24 South African individuals of different ethnolinguistic origins, the results of which revealed a high level of genetic diversity and highlights the potential implications for disease susceptibility in Africans. The study was the first government-funded human genomics research study to be performed on African soil. Read more:

The Department of Nuclear Medicine has entered a collaboration with the European Commission’s science and knowledge service, the Joint Research Centre (JRC), to develop a new breakthrough treatment for cancer patients.

The collaboration enables the Department to treat advanced-stage prostate cancer patients using targeted alpha therapy (TAT). TAT is very expensive and there are strict international security standards regarding nuclear safety. Thus, were it not for this collaboration, the Department would not have been able to treat its patients with this form of therapy. TAT using 225Ac-PSMA has proved to be very successful, with an 85% success in treating patients with advanced-stage prostate cancer,’ explains Prof Mike Sathekge, Head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine. The Department is the only platform in Africa, and one of only three in the world, to offer this treatment. It is situated at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria and treats its patients at the hospital. Read More:

Researchers from the University of Cape Town's Biological Sciences Department have discovered an unusual bone tissue pattern that was suspected to be osteomyelitis in the femur of an omnivorous therapsid, more specifically known as a Dinocephalian. Osteomyelitis is a degenerative bone disease caused by a bacterial infection which eats away bone. It is common in modern mammals and reptiles as well as in their earliest prehistoric ancestors, which predated the dinosaurs.

Christen Shelton, Department of Biological Science and first author of the paper published in the International Journal of Paleobiology, Historical Biology, said: “While analysing thin sections of the femur under a microscope, I noticed that the bone tissue did not follow the normal growth pattern as that observed in other specimens.”         Read more:

Researchers at the University of Zambia in the School of Veterinary Medicine in conjunction with their counterparts at the Center for Zoonosis Control, Hokkaido University, Japan have developed a new tool for testing Ebola Virus. One of the designers Dr Katendi Changula reported at the recent media briefing held in Senate Chamber of the University of Zambia that “….the new instrument can test Ebola viruses in 10 minutes as compared to the current tests which takes several hours for a patient to know the results”. Read more:

Researchers from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics and from the Department of Biomedicine at Aarhus University have collaboratively developed and described a llama-antibody that might have significant impact for future diagnostics and treatment of, e.g., kidney diseases.

In a healthy person, our own cells are protected against the effects of the C3 cleavage. However, as a result of mutations in our DNA, this protection might be lost, increasing the risk of developing chronic inflammatory disorders or autoimmune diseases. For a long time, the researchers have been focussing on developing agents that prevent such undesirable complement activation. For this reason, they developed the llama-antibody to prevent cleavage of C3. Llama-antibodies are also known as nanobodies due to their small size, and compared to normal antibodies, they are easy to develop and significantly cheaper to produce. Read more:

Three CPUT students have started a commercial enterprise that seeks to bridge the gap between the public and private healthcare systems by focusing on innovative solutions to transform primary healthcare services.Wela Healthcare was founded by third-year Entrepreneurship students, Siyanda Mdukulwana, Naledi Loni and Phila Zita.The trio says they seek to provide accessible, affordable, and efficient primary healthcare services in pre-urban areas using innovative methods. Read more: