Two researchers from the North-West University (NWU) have received a special grant that will boost their collaborative research nationally and internationally.

By Menziwa Msibi

The subject group Chemistry at the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Mahikeng Campus hosted the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the Sasol Foundation during a visit on 2 June 2023.

The purpose of this visit was to reinforce the visiting parties’ commitment to support and enhance research capabilities by providing scholarships for honours, master’s, and PhD students.

The subject group History at the North-West University (NWU) recently hosted Prof Thula Simpson, associate professor of history at the University of Pretoria, as part of the group’s seminar series.

Prof Simpson is also a British scholar who holds a PhD from Birkbeck, University of London, and is the author of the acclaimed book, Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC's Armed Struggle.

During the seminar Prof Simpson presented a paper titled “Umkhonto we Sizwe and its Historians: Action, Reaction and Counteraction, c. 1963 to the Present”.

A study by the University of Vienna, in collaboration with researchers from South Africa and the United Kingdom, is investigating the different emotional responses bilingual people have towards swear words in their different languages. The study will focus on English-Afrikaans bilingualism, examining the perceptions of swear words and swearing behaviors of English-Afrikaans bilinguals in South Africa. The study aims to measure complex bilingualism and understand why some words may be considered acceptable in one language but not in another.

Two North-West University (NWU) academics, Prof Frikkie van Niekerk and Prof Nico Vorster, are the proud editors of the transdisciplinary book  titled Science and Faith in Dialogue. It is published in open access format by AOSIS Scholarly Books. 

Prof van Niekerk was the main editor and also contributed a book chapter, and Prof Vorster was the co-editor.

The North-West University (NWU) Water Research Group (WRG) and the University of Limpopo (UL) recently hosted a Snail Day community workshop, sponsored by the Water Research Commission (WRC).

According to Dr Lizaan de Necker, principal investigator from the NWU, this formed part of their project that focuses on the distribution of schistosomiasis in South Africa, how it may have changed over the past 40 years, and to model how the distribution may change in the future because of climate change.

Several lecturers from the Global, Innovative, Forefront, Talent (GIFT) Management research niche area in the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (FEMS) will soon depart for Hungary, courtesy of funding received from the European Union’s Erasmus funding programme.

According to Prof Anna-Marie Pelser, associate research professor and GIFT director, funding was sourced in January 2020, but unfortunately, the war between Russia and Ukraine delayed the finalisation of the funding grant.

The subject group Information Systems at the North-West University (NWU) has its first National Research Foundation (NRF) Y2-rated researcher in Prof Joshua Chukwuere.

He is an NWU-grown scholar in information systems, specifically emerging and digital technologies. Prof Chukwuere is an associate professor in the research focus area known as Emerging Technologies/Digital Technologies in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (FEMS).

North-West University (NWU) researchers are investigating the role of whole-food plant-based nutrition in South Africa.

Prof Andrew Robinson and Dr Nanine Wyma, currently a master’s-degree student at the NWU, are co-founders of the Physicians Association for Nutrition (PAN) South Africa. They are conducting research with the help of the Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research (AUTHeR) at the NWU.

The Technology Transfer and Innovation Support (TTIS) office at the North-West University (NWU) is helping innovators and entrepreneurs to realise their dreams.

When a third-year BCom student, Irene Nompini Tsele, conceived her idea for a cosmetics business, little did she know that partnering with the university’s TTIS office would one day make her business flourish.