My vision for the future of research at UP and how I will contribute to this development
I believe the science at UP and in South Africa could be relevant on a number of levels and that all science aimed at different “end?users” should be recognized. First, our science should address challenges that arise locally. However, while the main focus of such science should be to solve local problems, I also believe that it is often possible to design such research and phrase it to be relevant more broadly, which should be encouraged from the outset. Second, a major focus of our science should be to work on continental or global scale challenges, providing international relevance. Research with regional or global relevance will be of benefit to South Africa but also more widely. Finally, I believe there should also be scope for conducting science that is not necessarily problem?based, but answers to our curiosity about the world and how it works. In my field, many global challenges were only identified because baseline knowledge existed about the systems that are affected by such challenges. In addition, such research may lead to innovations that could not have been foreseen. Therefore, I believe that striking a balance between these three foci will result in a holistic approach with a range of benefactors.