UCT inaugural lectures for November 2025

Dear colleagues and students

The University of Cape Town (UCT) Inaugural Lecture series celebrates the academic excellence and leadership of newly-appointed professors. These lectures recognise scholarly achievement, create opportunities for exchange across disciplines, and reflect on how our colleagues’ work shapes teaching, research and public life.

As we close the 2025 series, Professors Phillip De Jager and Wendy Burgers will present the final round of inaugural lectures for the year. I invite all staff, students, alumni and members of the wider community to attend these events and engage with the ideas and insights they offer.

Professor Phillip De Jager (Faculty of Commerce)

Professor De Jager will deliver his lecture, “The Numbers We Trust: Unintended Consequences of the Interconnectedness Between Money, Accounting, and Banking”, on Tuesday, 4 November 2025 at 17:00 SAST in the Mafeje Room, Bremner Building on lower campus.

At the centre of modern finance lies a question of trust. Professor De Jager’s lecture will explore how accounting conventions shape our understanding of money, solvency and risk in the banking sector. Drawing on lessons from the global financial crisis, he will examine how regulatory frameworks such as the Basel Capital Accords and the International Financial Reporting Standard influence perceptions of financial stability. He will ask how well these systems capture economic reality and what happens when they fail to do so.

Professor De Jager is a professor in the Department of Finance and Tax at UCT, where he teaches corporate finance, investments and research methodology. He is also a visiting professor at the School of Finance at Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance. His research spans bank capital, corporate finance and what he calls “research about research”, an exploration of how knowledge itself is produced and evaluated. He serves on the editorial boards of leading journals, including the British Accounting Review and Accounting Open. He contributes to national academic policy through the Academy of Science of South Africa.

Beyond academia, Professor De Jager has served as chair of the UCT Retirement Fund and advised the Competition Commission of South Africa on pricing conduct. His work combines analytical rigour with institutional insight, encouraging policymakers and scholars alike to examine the numbers that underpin financial decision-making more closely. His lecture invites us to rethink the relationship between accounting and the real economy and to consider the consequences that arise when trust in numbers is misplaced.

• Register to attend the lecture.

Professor Wendy Burgers (Faculty of Health Sciences)

Professor Burgers will present her lecture, “In Defence of Us All: Engineering Immunity in the Age of Outbreaks”, on Thursday, 20 November 2025 at 18:00 SAST at the New Learning Centre Lecture Theatre, Anatomy Building, on the health sciences campus.

Professor Burgers’ lecture will examine how viruses have shaped both our biology and our societies. She will reflect on how viral evolution and immune escape challenge our defences, and how vaccines harness the immune system for protection. Her lecture will trace the connection between fundamental discoveries in immunology and the collaborative platforms that enable vaccine development and pandemic preparedness. She will ask how science can build not only resilience but also equity in global health.

A professor of virology in the Department of Pathology and deputy director of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM) at UCT, Professor Burgers’ research focuses on T-cell immunity, vaccine evaluation and the immune response to viruses. She founded and leads the Cellular Immunology Platform at UCT, a hub for research and capacity development that works closely with biotechnology partners Afrigen and Biovac. Her work has been published in leading journals, including Nature, The Lancet and Science Translational Medicine.

Professor Burgers is a Fellow of UCT and a recipient of the South African Medical Research Council Silver Medal. She has served on national advisory committees on COVID-19 vaccines and biotechnology. A dedicated mentor and educator, she has trained and supported a diverse generation of African scientists, most of them women, while driving efforts to transform biomedical research and education. Her work reflects UCT’s commitment to advancing science in service of society.

• Register to attend the lecture.

I encourage you to attend, participate and celebrate the achievements of our colleagues as we conclude the 2025 UCT Inaugural Lecture series.

Sincerely

Professor Mosa Moshabela
Vice-Chancellor

Read previous communications:

• From the UCT Executive
• Campus Announcements