Further funding for nuclear engineering research in South Africa

The North West University (NWU) Potchefstroom campus announced on Tuesday that the National Research Foundation, or the NRF (a major agency of the Department of Science and Technology), had awarded its School of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering a third cycle of funding for the school’s South African Research Chair Initiative (SARChI) chair in nuclear engineering. The new funding award totals R16-million over five years. “The first chair was awarded in 2006,” pointed out NWU SARChI nuclear engineering chair Professor Jat du Toit. “This third cycle that has been awarded to us, is proof that the NRF notices the value that our research adds to a specialist field of study. An international panel of experts confirmed that the research of the previous two cycles had been of an exceptional standard, and therefore further funding was approved.”