Percy FitzPatrick Institute upgraded to a fully funded Centre of Excellence (CoE)

31 Aug 2010
31 Aug 2010

A mid-term external review of the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence (CoE) at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology at UCT was conducted during 2009. The general consensus of the review was that the Centre is performing above expectations and should be funded for a second five year term, further recommending that the budget of the CoE be expanded to be more commensurate with that of other Centres in order to better prosecute its important brief. The panel commended and congratulated the CoE on high standards of scholarship and research ethos; meeting the targets of publications, training and outreach; a very successful MSc Conservation Biology course; attention to disparities in postgraduate recruitment including the annual Biodiversity Academy programme; and, additional resources to support more postdoctoral fellows. However, the panel felt that excessive resources were devoted to areas that are peripheral to rather than core to biodiversity and conservation research. There should be an expansion of research activities into population and community ecology and conservation biology of terrestrial systems.

Following these constructive suggestions by the reviewers, the CoE has during 2010 made strategic advancements to increase its terrestrial ornithology work and its conservation work. Although not directly a 50th Anniversary activity, it is coincidental that great news comes in our 50th year that the FitzPatrick Institute CoE has been upgraded to a fully funded CoE. This means an additional R12.5mil over five years (R2.5mil/year 2010 – 2014). We greatly appreciate this significant enhancement of support from the National Research Foundation and the Department of Science & Technology, and trust that this will allow us to achieve even higher performance levels.

IMAGE: Dr Andrew Kaniki, Executive Director: Knowledge Fields Development, National Research Foundation (left) congratulates Prof. Phil Hockey, Director of the FitzPatrick Institute (right) on the upgrade to a fully funded CoE. Photo: Chris Tobler.