On 4 May 2022 a delegation from the Sasol Foundation visited the subject group Chemistry on the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Mahikeng Campus.

President Cyril Ramaphosa recently signed into effect three anti gender-based violence bills that will afford victims more protection.

These amendments will, among other things, allow victims to apply for protection orders online without having to appear in court, and will require all sexual offenders to be placed on a national registry.

The Criminal and Related Matters Amendment Bill, Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Bill, and Domestic Violence Amendment Bill were all signed into law.

Ontiretse Motingwa

North-West University (NWU) Prof Olubukola Oluranti Babalola recently shared her expertise by editing the book, Food Security and Safety: African Perspectives, published by Springer, Cham.

The acting vice-chancellor of the North-West University (NWU), Prof Linda du Plessis, clearly sets the example after she was awarded her second doctorate in 2020, and has also been praised for the quality of her study by two international academic institutions and associations.

Blood is the life-giving substance that flows through our veins, but if the pressure in our veins becomes too high it can be detrimental to our health.

The North-West University (NWU) continues to shine in global rankings. In the latest rankings, the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) placed the NWU in the top 4,5% of universities in their 2022/2023 edition of the Global 2000 list. This is an improvement from being in the top 4,7% in last year’s ranking.

This outstanding achievement was published on 25 April on the cwur.org website. The NWU was ranked according to academic performance among 19 788 universities worldwide.

Jacques Beukes of the MUST Deep Learning research group at the Faculty of Engineering is the 2021 winner of a North-West University (NWU) Vice-Chancellor’s Medal for his dissertation “Interpretability of deep neural networks for SYM-H prediction”. Eight vice-chancellor’s medals are awarded annually to the best master’s-degree students at the NWU. Jacques was awarded the medal for Engineering.

Phenyo Mokgothu

South Africa is presently experiencing an outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) on farms and communal areas in the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, North West and Gauteng. 

Hannes Lombard, manager of the North-West University’s (NWU’s) farm in Mahikeng, says the outbreak of FMD in the country has a big impact on the poorest people who are directly dependent on their livestock.

“FMD reduces herd fertility, leading to less efficient herd structures and lower livestock productivity, which in turn affects food security.

Phenyo Mokgothu

North-West University (NWU) academic in the subject group Developmental Studies, Gaopalelwe Mpolokeng says the success of the government’s District Development Model (DDM) lies in cooperation.

 Approved by the South African cabinet on 21 August 2019, the DDM is a government approach to improve integrated planning and service delivery across the three spheres of government, with district and metropolitan spaces as focal points of government and private sector investment.

Phenyo Mokgothu

Globally, one of the main causes of street homelessness is chronic mental illness, and South Africa is no different. Researchers from the North-West University (NWU) have some recommendations on how the plight of these vulnerable people can be alleviated.