Dear colleagues

UCT’s 2030 Vision for Research strives to unleash knowledge in, for and from Afrika to redefine and co-create a sustainable global future. The implementation plan for this vision recognises the need for enhanced research support systems, facilitating approaches to inter- and transdisciplinary research and to engaged scholarship, development of the next generation of transformed and diverse research leaders, the nurturing of strong postgraduate programmes and the facilitating of impactful research programmes, particularly those focused on grand challenges core to Africa.

The 2030 Research Catalytic Programme, developed to deliver on this implementation under the custodianship and leadership of the DVC responsible for Research & Internationalisation, Prof Sue Harrison, will comprise of various initiatives.

The first of these is the UCT Vision 2030 Grand Challenges Programme, which seeks to provide impetus to further advance on UCT’s research and innovation capabilities for addressing Africa’s Grand Challenges. Through this initiative we aim to build and leverage on our unique and emerging strengths in a way that will enable and enhance UCT’s capacity to contribute meaningfully to generating new knowledge relevant to, and for the benefit of, the City of Cape Town and its surrounding areas, South Africa and our continent while, importantly, also contributing positively to the global knowledge base from our Global South perspective. Through the Initiative we also seek to build the next generation of transformed and diverse research leaders to maintain sustained research excellence at UCT.

Proposals are thus invited for two research calls within the UCT Vision 2030 Grand Challenges Programme, building towards UCT’s Research 2030 Vision:

• The Vision 2030 grand challenges programmes
• The Vision 2030 grand challenges pilot projects.

These calls, centred within UCT’s strategic priority research areas and built on an inter- and transdisciplinary research approach, are detailed in the call for proposals – which you can access here.

All researchers interested in submitting a proposal should submit an intention to submit by 31 July and more detailed guidance including permissible budget categories and proposal template will be provided.

All proposals must be submitted to the International Grants Hub by the Principal Investigator by the 16 September 2022.

Proposals will be reviewed by a panel comprising of UCT senior leadership staff, academic representatives and at least one external member.

PIs of the shortlisted proposals will be invited to present their proposals to the review panel.

The Research Announcement is produced by the Research Office, University of Cape Town.