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New NRF President shares his vision for SA’s research system
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On 4 July this year Dr Albert van Jaarsveld was appointed President and CEO of South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF), of which SAEON is a potential national facility.
With research interests that include environmental planning and biocomplexity, Dr Van Jaarsveld is no stranger to SAEON. He was one of the principal architects of the Network, and also served as the first Chairman of SAEON’s Advisory Board.
SAEON eNews caught up with Dr Van Jaarsveld on a very special day, his 50th birthday, to ask him about his vision for the NRF, South Africa’s National System of Innovation (NSI), as well as for SAEON.
How do you see the NRF of the future?
"As the largest agency in the National System of Innovation, the NRF has an extremely important role to fulfil. Whatever South Africa’s ambitions are for growing the science system, the NRF will have to play a pivotal role to ensure that government objectives and strategies, as well as the whole research system in its total diversity and ability to respond to new challenges, are maintained as we move forward."
"This specific function can only be achieved by a body such as an agency, which is semi-independent from policy-making and does not perform research, which means that it is not in competition with research institutes for the same resources. This neutrality that the agency function brings into the system is vital to promote peer review driven resource allocations."
"An agency function fulfils an important role in the science system. Government priorities shift over time and if government becomes a direct funder, it can become bogged down by commitments and current research funding modalities. This can make it politically difficult for government to withdraw that funding and address new emergent priorities. Because the NRF does not compete for funding it is able to adjust and reposition itself in accordance with the shift in government priorities without compromising existing funding modalities. This distinction between policy making and funding agency leads to greater flexibility and responsiveness in the system."
"Having a mechanism like an agency function as a go-between means that government can reprioritise as their priorities shift. The agency’s function is to reposition the resources and engineer the changes in the funding landscape over time."
Looking back on your past two years as Vice President of the NRF, what were the highlights?
"The past two years at the NRF exceeded my expectations, for a number of reasons:"
"First, to work in such an uplifting work environment where so many people are passionate about science has been a true inspiration."
"I’ve also enjoyed getting to know the science system from beyond the boundaries of an institution such as a university. This has enabled me to get a bird’s-eye view of what’s happening across the system and this has not only been a really interesting learning experience, but has also led to perspectives that cultivate fertile ground for the NRF to be working on to try and assist the universities and other research institutions according to their individual needs."
"There are tremendous research strengths and vast potential in South African universities and research institutions. The challenge for the NRF lies in finding the resources to support them adequately and make sure we grow the talent in a direction where it will make an international impact. For me that is critical. We need to take whatever research strengths there are and develop them into strengths with a global research impact to strengthen our science system."
Are there sufficient resources available to do that?
"The reality is that South Africa is currently addressing priorities such as poverty and social and rural development. However, I am confident that as soon as we’ve seen the end of the current economic downturn, more resources will start flowing in support of the science system. I’m convinced that government is committed and that we’ll see the consequences of its investment filter into the system over time."
How would you describe the NRF’s relationship with government?
"Against the backdrop of some tensions between the NRF and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) some five years ago, the NRF’s relationship with its line department in particular has, in my view, shown a dramatic improvement. I am confident that we are becoming better aligned in terms of our objectives. We are reaching greater clarity about our respective roles and ways in which we are able to complement each other to better the science system."
"The confidence that is required to get a sound working relationship established between government and an agency function such as ours is returning to the system."
What is your perspective of SAEON and its future?
"We need to find clarity in the mutual thinking between ourselves and our colleagues in the DST about what SAEON’s actual role in the system ought to be."
"SAEON has three primary functions: The first is to monitor and measure environmental change using its system of nodes that are distributed across the country as the focal points of those measurement activities; the second is to distribute the information by means of information systems to make sure that information about the environment becomes available to policy-makers and decision-makers; and the third is the very strongly developed environmental education role of SAEON at the local nodes and in other locations to ensure that the message of environmental change is conveyed to upcoming generations."
"Based on these three functions, SAEON provides a platform from which the research and academic community can conduct significant research on long-term environmental change as it happens in our system."
"SAEON’s platform capability means that it has the potential to develop into a national facility. The only reason why SAEON has not yet been formally recognised as a national facility is simply because a national facility can only be declared by the Minister of Science and Technology, and there have been so many transitions of late that the final decision on this issue has yet to be taken. The NRF has now again approached the DST to consider conferring national facility status on SAEON."
And SAEON’s role in the NSI?
"SAEON’s role in the NSI was clearly defined when it was launched: First of all SAEON needs to provide clarity about long-term trends in environmental/ biological variables and environmental/ biological information."
"These long-term trends are sometimes obscured by an array of intermittent short-term studies that prevent us from getting the bigger picture. And this is really what SAEON is all about – to provide the big picture. Long-term trend information is important, not only to inform our environmental management purposes as a nation, but also for policy-makers to respond appropriately into the future."
"Secondly, SAEON’s mandate is to try to determine whether those long-term trends are driven by natural fluctuations in the environment, for example whether they are driven by shifts in the earth’s crust and/or changes in the earth’s magnetic fields, or whether they are driven by human interventions."
"It is extremely difficult to get clarity on these issues, and this is why the SAEON’s long-term monitoring function is so important in the system and why long-term information is vital. Human interventions frequently have very different patterns and modalities as opposed to natural background fluctuations. It is by analysing those patterns as they emerge over time that we will get greater clarity about the real source of this observed variability."
"The information will ultimately also enable researchers to arrive at more accurate predictions about natural events and disasters in the future."
