Cutting edge ecological research infrastructure
Distinguished Professor Bob Scholes set to champion ecosystems in the recently launched South African Research Infrastructure Roadmap (SARIR).
Research infrastructure is similar to other infrastructure, and investment now will pay off later by positioning South Africa in the knowledge economy. This is according to Professor Robert (Bob) Scholes, who has spent four years as part of the team who developed the South African Research Infrastructure Roadmap (SARIR) – the first of its kind in Africa.
The SARIR is a strategic framework which aims to provide research infrastructure across the public research system. It includes facilities, resources and services to be used by the scientific community – students and established researchers – across all disciplines and institutions. The funding of the initial parts of the infrastructure – including its ecological parts – was announced by the Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, on 4 October 2016. She described the SARIR as a world-class research infrastructure which is the basis for building competitive knowledge-based activities that will attract the best scientists and innovators.
Professor Scholes has played the role of ‘champion’ from an ecological research perspective. During the implementation phase he will continue to have an oversight role which includes providing leadership and outreach to the broad research community. The South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) will be the implementing organisation for the ecological infrastructure parts of SARIR.
Prof Scholes explains, “The SARIR is an open platform where scientists and students from all over the world, but especially South Africa, have an opportunity to use state-of-the-art equipment and share knowledge across disciplines to better inform research outputs.”
From a teaching and learning perspective, Prof Scholes highlights that this platform provides a new way for training future scientists: “Students will have access to enormous amounts of public domain data. Additionally, they will benefit from being part of a large research community network.”
The SARIR focuses on five key scientific domains, within which 13 research infrastructures have been identified:
- Humans and society: South African network of health and demographic surveillance sites; national centre for digital language resources
- Health, biological and food security: Distributed platform for “omics” research; biobanks; nuclear medicine research facility
- Earth and environment: South African marine and Antarctic research facility; biogeochemistry research infrastructure platform; expanded national terrestrial and freshwater environmental observation network (this is the one where Prof Scholes is the champion); shallow marine and coastal research infrastructure; natural sciences collection facility
- Materials and manufacturing: Materials characterisation facility; nano-micro manufacturing facility
- Energy: Solar research facility
The SARIR is promoting an interdisciplinary agenda. According to Prof Scholes interdisciplinary research is be challenging but essential. In order for research outputs to have maximum impact it is important to take into account not only the biophysical science, but other factors such as social, economic and so forth. “From an ecological perspective, the SARIR provides a platform for ecologists with various specialisations to share knowledge. For example, I am a systems ecologist and I will be collaborating with fresh water ecologists, biodiversity specialists, land specialists and so forth. Going another step further, there is also engagement to be had with researchers in other disciplines such as the social sciences to better understand behaviours, perceptions and social impacts. An interdisciplinary approach to research is geared towards yielding comprehensive and inclusive research results that can be used by various sectors,” says Prof Scholes.
Prof Scholes concludes, “It is an ambitious project and many people were skeptical at first that it was possible or fundable. However, in order for South Africa researchers and students to remain internationally competitive and to produce high-calibre research they need access to a modern and innovative research infrastructure. The investment in this research infrastructure has many long-term benefits including becoming a knowledge economy and developing top-rated researchers, which will ultimately benefit society at large.”
To access the SARIR document, please click here.