The recent CPUT Research Festival highlighted the university’s thriving research culture and its commitment to excellence, innovation and collaboration.

This inspiring event, themed: Research with Purpose: Grounding Innovation in African Realities, united academics, doctoral students, and industry partners to showcase their remarkable contributions to knowledge creation and innovation.

Prof Dina Burger, Director of the Directorate of Research Development, highlighted the importance of reflecting on and celebrating the remarkable scholarly achievements of our outstanding academic staff.

Lara Smith, organising committee member, said the annual CPUT Research Festival, held at the South African Renewable Energy Technology Centre, is a celebration of research excellence and collaboration. “[It was] established to recognise outstanding research achievements and to strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration, the Research Festival serves as a vital platform for sharing ideas and fostering partnerships within and beyond the university,” Smith noted.

Burger emphasised that the Research Festival beautifully embodies the essence of a unified, intelligent CPUT, showcasing everything the University philosophically aspires to and practically strives for, as envisioned in “our Vision 2030” – a testament to “our goal of becoming one smart CPUT”. “This relates to the event itself and how it was organised and executed by all the different role-players that were given a task to fulfil, up to the excellent presentations that were given by our two keynote speakers.”

In his welcome address, Vice-Chancellor Prof Chris Nhlapo said: “We are pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Therefore, we must proudly celebrate fundamental discoveries and practical applications alike. As educators, we also value research as a potent form of learning by doing. Today we stand at a remarkable moment, marking 20 years of excellence in education, two decades of commitment, discovery and impact. It’s an opportunity not just to look back but to genuinely appreciate how far we have come.

“This research festival comes at a moment and time when we celebrate our 20th anniversary as a merged institution, appropriately themed: 20 Years of Growing from Greats. We are celebrating the milestone of two decades of love, commitment and shared memories.

“We are celebrating the milestone of excellence in education, where education meets innovation. The milestone of great research and innovation. The milestone of sustained good governance. The milestone of guiding the students to scale the greatest heights.”

The first keynote address was delivered by Jetane Charsley, Head of the National Intellectual Property Management Office (NIPMO) at the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation. Her presentation, "NIPMO Empowering Innovation: Leveraging Technology and Innovation for SDG Impact," showcased inspiring success stories from South Africa.

Dr Gugu Moche, Acting Deputy CEO: Research, Innovation, Impact Support and Advancement (RIISA) at the National Research Foundation (NRF), delivered an inspiring keynote address on the future of research and innovation in South Africa, emphasising the powerful role of national research systems in driving societal transformation.

Burger highlighted how the festival showcased CPUT’s profound appreciation for the incredible scholarship of its academic staff, celebrating the pinnacle of their achievements. This includes Research Chairs, esteemed rated researchers, and prolific scholarly contributions, as well as excellence in mentoring Master’s and Doctoral students. The honour of national and international accolades, alongside the pursuit of external funding for meaningful research and innovation, reflects a vibrant commitment to academic excellence.

“My own view is that our Research Festival is one of the highlights of our academic endeavours annually.”

During the Research Festival 2025, CPUT showcased the work of its eight research chairs, highlighting various projects and areas of research excellence. The chairs are as follows:

• Prof Jeanine Marnewick: CPUT Research Chair in Biotechnology
• Dr Conrad Sparks: Interim CPUT Research Chair in the Oceans Economy
• Prof Mohammed Tariq Kahn: CPUT Research Chair in Energy
• Prof Nothemba Joyce Nduna: ETDP SETA WIL Research Chair in Work-Integrated Learning in TVET Colleges
• Prof Bongani Ncube: NRF–WRC SARChI Research Chair in Governance and Economics for Water and Sanitation Sector Institutions
• Prof Zayd Waghid: Interim NRF SARChI Research Chair in Teacher Education
• Prof Chris Winberg: NRF SARChI Research Chair in Work-Integrated Learning
• Prof Glenda Davison: Interim NRF Nedbank SARChI Research Chair in Cardiometabolic Health

Reflecting on the event, Davison, Head of the Department of Biomedical Sciences, said the research festival was “a wonderful success”. “The organisation was exceptional, and it attracted academics from the entire university. It was heartwarming to see the room full and also the discussion around the exhibits and posters. [The] delegates were engaged, and lots of networking happened.”

The event also included the annual Research Excellence Awards, which pay tribute to the dedication, creativity, and vision that continue to shape CPUT’s research journey.

Burger added that this year’s exhibitions were of a very high standard and that they received positive feedback on their exhibitions and excellent posters displayed at the festival.

Written by Aphiwe Boyce
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

No single event captures the incredible breadth of intramural and extramural research as effectively as the annual CPUT Research Festival 2024.

The jam-packed event stretched over four days, The first day of the 2024 Institutional Research Festival kicked off with a welcome address by Vice-Chancellor Prof Chris Nhlapo in which he encouraged the continued support for the focus areas:

• The environment, climate change and sustainability
• Bioeconomy and biotechnology
• Space Science, Engineering and Technology
• Smart energy
• Human, Health and Social dynamics
• Digital society

Day one of the festival also focused on integrating work-focused research and the world of business and served as a platform to showcase and celebrate research achievements across various disciplines. The keynote speech was provided by Dr Sharman Wickham from the Cape Higher Education Consortium (CHEC). Dr Abeda Dawood Division Manager of Research Capacity Development (RCD) at the South African Medical Research Council made a presentation on RCD grants, such as self-initiated research grants, scholarships, and other research capacity development programmes at SAMRC.

Prof Dina Burger: Director: Directorate Research Development, said: “This is also the first time in South Africa that a Research Festival of this magnitude has taken place and as CPUT we should be proud that we have pioneered such an important opportunity to come together and celebrate the dedicated hard work of so many research work that has taken place with the singular aim to improve the lives of our communities through quintuple helix partnerships.”

In what used to be a Research Day, Burger said their scope of research has grown in leaps and bounds to such an extent that “it is actually impossible to just focus on our research achievements in one day”. “This is where we developed the concept of a research festival where we can place a magnifying glass on the full scope of our research endeavours inclusive of research integrity and ethics of our research and our postgraduate achievements.”

She said through their CHEC partnership they are doing highly impactful research that is taken up by society for the benefit of society. “There are also a number of evidence-based research projects undertaken as a result of the support given by CHEC. The possibility to also celebrate the extent to which we undertake mode 2 and 3 research with quintuple helix partners aligns well with our Vision 2030 especially when there is a growing body of evidence of transdisciplinary research taking place across the institution.”

Burger said the first Research Festival has also allowed multiple internal and external stakeholders and CHEC partners to exhibit the research that they do collaboratively and has offered an opportunity for academic researchers, captains of industry, sister university academic researchers, and higher education leaders as well as local and provincial government leaders to come together for one week to further explore opportunities and deepen the commitment to undertake collaborative research and innovation impacting the society.

“I am of the opinion that we have achieved our goal... What is most important for me is that an important ecosystem has joined hands and has come together to find mutual opportunities to undertake more research and generate more innovations for the betterment of society and solving the challenges that we are confronted with.”

The last day of the conference included several individual paper presentations with themed colloquia centred around Research Focus Area 1: Bioeconomy and Biotechnology and Research Focus Area 3: Smart Energy.

The day also included a reflection session and certificate ceremony for participants of the Sisonke Supervision Mentoring Programme.

The day’s highlights included the awarding of certificates and awards to National Research Foundation-rated researchers as well as for research excellence.

Burger said: “We feel proud of this achievement, but we also do not wish to take credit for the success of the festival by ourselves, as credit should go to the staff, we worked tirelessly to make the festival possible, our CHEC partners, our academic staff, our phenomenal postgraduate students and our industry and broader community stakeholders. We also need to reflect more on how to improve the scale and reach of the next Research Festival and the mode of delivery.”

She added: “We ultimately think that this festival has the potential to include our myriads of African partners as well as our growing network of international partners.”