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Applied centre for climate and earth systems science (access) launched
Posted by Bridget in Science in Society
The Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, Derek Hanekom,
officiated the launch of the Applied Centre for Climate and Earth
Systems Science, which is hosted by the Council for Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR). The event was held at the University of the
Western Cape in their recently opened Life Sciences Building.
The DST/NRF Centres of Excellence (CoEs) are physical or virtual
centres of research which concentrate existing capacity and resources to
enable researchers to collaborate across disciplines on long-term
projects that are locally relevant and internationally competitive in
order to enhance the pursuit of research excellence and capacity
development.
Global change and the associated global warming and climate change
impacts are now a pressing environmental security issue rooted in the
energy consumption that maintains our traditional economic development
and wealth creation. Therefore the debate on responding to environmental
challenges demands a sound and objective scientific basis for decision
making. The reduction of the uncertainties in the availability of
information concerning future climate projections in the short and
longer time is a high priority and must be balanced with pressing
current needs for development which include the alleviation of poverty
and the threats posed by current environmental variability (such as
floods, storms, droughts and the changing demography of disease, the
global change threats to biodiversity and arable land).;
It is in this context that the DST is launching the Applied Center for
Climate and Earth Systems Science (ACCESS) thereby providing a novel
platform on which global and regional environmental challenges can be
investigated, with the resultant useful products for decision makers.
Speaking at the launch event, the Deputy Minister of Science and
Technology said “there is an increasing appreciation of the catalytic
and transformative role of science and technology. South African science
and scientists are making valuable contributions to the scientific
understanding of climate and environmental change on the African
continent and there are existing strong programmes and partnerships.
“As a DST and a country, we have been called upon to play a role in
strengthening science and technology within the continent. We are doing
this in many ways including the development of an African bid for the
SKA. The programmes of ACCESS, in terms of research and human capital
development, will play a vital role in this regard,” he said.
“ACCESS as a Centre of Excellence has a key role to play in the
successful implementation of the Global Change Grand Challenge. It has
been identified as one of the major flagship initiatives that will help
us to advance scientific knowledge in South Africa and, very
importantly, to play a major role in growing and developing the base of
new, emerging and established researchers, particularly new black
researchers and women. We will be watching ACCESS closely in this regard
to ensure that it helps to deliver on a key national imperative of
building skills and knowledge,” the minister said.
ACCESS is a “development through science” programme which seeks to
inspire optimism with the promise of a better future. The main outcome
that it seeks is to provide education opportunities, since education is
the key to upliftment and innovation. To that end ACCESS intends to be a
centre of excellence that warrants international recognition and that
draws the local and international students to studies of our planet and
its management and indeed produces the decision makers of the future.
ACCESS is a consortium of research institutions and agencies and an
exciting collection of these have signed up to contribute to a whole
greater than the sum of its parts. These include the Universities of the
Western Cape, Pretoria, Stellenbosch, Witwatersrand, Cape Town,
Kwazulu-Natal and Rhodes along with the South African Weather Service,
South African Biodiversity Institute, Agricultural Research Council,
Geosciences Research Council, the South African Environmental
Observation Network and the CSIR the official hosts. The secretariat
will be set up at the Center for High Performance Computing at the CSIR
Campus in Rosebank. Collaborations with other regional institutes,
agencies and programmes in the continent are being developed and the
programme is initiating international collaboration with several
international partners including Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science
and Technology (JAMSTEC) and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research
(BCCR) at the University of Bergen in Norway.
ACCESS has already implemented a research programme with several
projects focused on a number of earth system issues; a services
programme which will develop a series of products for utilization by
service providers and implementing its educational programme which
includes a bursary programme, winter school and national masters
programme.
Please receive the attached speech by the Deputy Minister of Science
and Technology.
Issued by the Ministry of Science and Technology
For additional information, please contact:Nthabi Maoela – 082 944
0015
