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Pretoria – In the 2002/03 financial year, the ten research programmes of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) ran some 200 research projects, 50% more than in the previous financial year. "The HSRC has greatly improved its impact on South Africa's major development challenges by integrating its projects into large, coherent, co-operative research programmes", said Professor Jakes Gerwel, Chair of the HSRC governing council. Details of the HSRC's programmes and projects were given in the organisation's annual report launched at a function today by Dr Ben Ngubane, Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. The largest of these projects is setting up a data warehouse on developments in education and training, and providing a biennial review analysing developments in the labour market. It has been supported by a three year, R5 million p.a. grant from the Department of Science and Technology (DST). In the key area of HIV/AIDS, the HSRC successfully completed the continent's first systematically sampled nationwide survey of HIV prevalence, involving the taking of oral medical specimens from thousands of households. The Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and the Nelson Mandela Foundation granted the organisation R3.4 million for this work. The study is being replicated in several neighbouring SADC countries, paid by their governments. "This will dramatically improve the implementing and targeting of HIV/AIDS interventions across the region", said Dr Olive Shisana, Executive Director of the HSRC's programme on of the Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS. A related project on strategies for the care of orphans and vulnerable children in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe, which started in April 2002, involves the assessment of intervention programmes over a five-year period to assist children, families and communities affected by HIV/AIDS. The WK Kellogg Foundation granted R4.3 million for this project. In the area of schooling improvement, the HSRC was contracted for R4.5 million to evaluate the Quality Learning Project of the Joint Education Trust (JET). The project is a five-year school intervention programme to improve learner performance by providing relevant skills and expertise to district officials, school management teams and teachers. The HSRC conducted the National Research and Development Survey for the Department of Science and Technology, worth R3 million. This involved surveying the extent of research and development activity across the enormous range of public and private sector organisations doing such work in this country. The information has been captured in a database to form a reliable and valid time series. CEO Dr Mark Orkin noted that "Many of the research outputs have direct impact on the way our users, in government departments and elsewhere, make their policies and monitor implementation. It powerfully confirms our commitment to ‘social research that makes a difference’." Notes for editors The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) is South Africa's statutory research agency dedicated to the applied social sciences The HSRC undertakes ‘social science research that makes a difference’, concerned with all aspects of development and poverty alleviation in South Africa, the region, and in Africa. It undertakes policy relevant, often large-scale, research for government departments at national, regional and local levels, for other public entities, and for local and international development agencies. The HSRC's ten research programmes are: - Assessment Technology and Educational Evaluation
- Child, Youth and Family Development
- Democracy and Governance
- Democracy and Governance
- Human Resources Development
- Integrated Rural and Regional Development
- Knowledge Management
- Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health
- Surveys, Analysis, Modelling and Mapping
- Social Cohesion and Integration.
The HSRC has approximately 150 researchers, mainly specialists, 30 trainee researchers doing postgraduate degrees, and 100 support staff. Its revenue is derived roughly equally from a Parliamentary grant and from earnings from tenders, commissions, and local and international foundation grants. The organisation has transformed itself to respond flexibly and comprehensively to users' requirements by: - radically restructuring and expanding its research capabilities into ten interdisciplinary research programmes aligned to major development challenges;
- recruiting top-quality research executives and specialists;
- integrating its many projects into large-scale national ventures in collaboration with researchers in other science councils, tertiary institutions, NGOs (here and abroad), and international development agencies.
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