Capacity building and PhD student partnership in the Marine and Maritime sectors

The oceans cover ~70% of our planet and provide food, energy, environments, and resources that sustain life. Throughout history and into the future the oceans will be the principal pathways for human migration and commerce, with ships carrying more than 90% of global trade. Ports and coasts remain magnets for human activity with more than a billion people living along the coast and almost half of the world's population resident within 150 km of the sea. The oceans provide significant resources but they also are increasingly a source of natural and human-enhanced hazards. We are the stewards of this vast ecosystem and require a pipeline of PhD scholars with a global perspective on these marine and maritime issues to ensure their sustainable development and exploitation. 3-6 month internships will be developed in both institutions to meet these strategically important needs for society; each internship underpinned by world-class facilities and excellent training environment provided by our funded Doctoral Training Programme SPITFIRE.

The UoS is a world leader in the marine and maritime sector and NMMU is emerging as a leader in South Africa in this domain. PhD partnership activity will significantly enhance the skills and research capabilities of PhD scholars from both organisations; developing a cohort of 20 graduates that will have strong links to their hosting institution and a unique global perspective. The PhD exchange activity will be developed into a sustained institutional collaboration by annual staff exchange activity including Professional Services staff and development of an ongoing joint PhD programme.

Links have recently been built between PVC Leitch from NMMU and the Head of Ocean and Earth Science and the UoS leadership team including the Directorate of the SMMI. A tri-lateral Memorandum of Understanding is being drafted between NMMU, UoS and NOC under which this collaborative activity will sit. Dr Marc Rius (UoS) is currently visiting South Africa and will spend time at NMMU in July 2015 to forge new links around invasive species ecology and impact on coastal ecosystems.

If successful we will carry out bi-lateral visits in autumn 2015 to establish a range of priority areas for exchange projects between specific groups within both organisations. All staff in SMMI and SAIMI will be contacted to make them aware of the opportunities of this scheme and we will work proactively with the PhD students at both institutions to nuture the student-led proposal development that is core to the success of the programme. We will ensure that participants think more broadly than single discipline partnerships and will proactively encourage engagement with a broad set of research areas and research users across the SMMI and SAIMI stakeholders. The annual deadline will be set at the end of the year (in line with current practice at UoS) and all successful applicants will be informed early in 2016 and be required to undertake the first tranch of exchange activity in 2016. Face to face visits will be supplemented by webinar activity once the exchange activities have commenced.

Partnership activity will lead to conference presentations and publications produced jointly with stakeholders where appropriate. Depending on the nature of the exchange, the knowledge generated will directly inform policy makers via stakeholder interactions.