My vision for the future of research at UP and how I will contribute to this development
South Africa is nearly the end of what has principally been a mineral resource based economy. Various policy documents (e.g. National Development Plan) have highlighted the need to shift towards a ‘knowledge-based economy’. I have adopted this vision and see the role of academia as key towards achieving this vision. I believe that our countries geographical location (and highly abundant biological diversity) is key to realizing these aims. The University of Pretoria, through a number of strategic plans, has also identified the importance of key research areas, such as microbial ecology, in unlocking the knowledge-based economy. My research in the (i) Marine Microbial Ecology and Genomics of the Southern Ocean (ii) Microbial ecology of South African soils (iii) The South African human gut microbiome program all aim to contribute towards actualizing the various plans. Through these programs, we aim to ‘unlock’ the knowledge based economy and contribute towards human capacity development. For instance, the Marine Microbial Ecology project fits in well with the Operation Phakisa initiative. Under this program, we have begun a number of projects focused on bioprospecting and have produced large amounts of DNA sequence data, which will be ‘mined’ for industrially important enzymes. The program above have the potential to serve the strategic goals of the University of Pretoria (e.g. research outputs) while contributing to South Africa’s development.