TsamaHUB advertised the Transdisciplinary Doctoral Programme in Sustainability in the press on the weekend of 29/30 August 2009.
Global Sustainability Challenge
This new Doctoral Programme is offered by Stellenbosch University (SU) in partnership with its strategic partners the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and Sustainability Institute (SI). This transdisciplinary PhD Programme has emerged in response to the global challenge of sustainability and the need for knowledge of complex inter-related social-ecological systems. In order to understand and be able to respond to such a challenge, we need new ways of knowing and producing knowledge that will make it possible to develop an integrated understanding of such systems. Complex global sustainability challenges relating, for example, to poverty, energy, water, waste, food security, biodiversity, urbanization, conflict, gender, values and identity cannot be understood and addressed using mono-disciplinary approaches. Sustainability is a transdisciplinary challenge. Engaging with this challenge, the Doctoral Programme provides participants with a unique experience of learning beyond disciplinary boundaries.
Core Modules
The PhD programme begins with course during January and February 2010, covering the following areas: sustainable development and sustainability; transdisciplinary theory; complexity theory; transdisciplinary methodology; and research paradigms and strategies. These modules, presented by local and international experts in these fields, are not credit-bearing. The dissertation is the only credit-bearing component of the programme. For the duration of the Doctoral Programme students will be required to attend and actively participate in a regular postgraduate seminar series, to present and discuss their work-in-progress with fellow students and their supervisors as well as for furthering dialogue on relevant sustainability issues and problems.
Supervision
Doctoral students will have access to a Panel of Supervisors drawn from all the participating faculties / departments. This Panel is a supervisory and advisory forum, established to oversee the transdisciplinary co-supervision of all PhD students. Each student will be registered in a particular faculty and will be allocated to a main supervisor plus probably two (but not more than three) co-supervisors from other relevant faculties – depending on the cross-cutting nature of the research topic under discussion. Co-supervisors might also be sourced, for example, from the CSIR and HSRC or, where applicable, from our international partners. Together with the regular PhD seminars the co-supervision of individual students by multi-disciplinary teams of experts form the backbone of the Doctoral Programme.
Africa's Sustainability Challenges
Africa’s sustainability challenges is a major focus of this Doctoral Programme. In the light of the extreme poverty prevailing in sub-Saharan Africa, the region is unlikely to reach the target set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of halving poverty by the end of 2015. The level of vulnerability of its inhabitants to food insecurity has increased, due to the degradation of the natural environment climate change poses a serious medium- and long-term threat to ecosystems in southern Africa. Increases in temperature will lead, not only to the greater frequency of extreme events, but also to the depletion of the region’s biodiversity and the shrinkage of its already scarce water resources. South Africa experiences many of the problems that beset the sub-region and sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. Such problems are exacerbated by the very large number of people living with HIV and AIDS in the region.
Contested Issues and Processes
The complex social-ecological systems problems responsible for Africa’s sustainability challenges behave in a non-linear and unpredictable manner, which can affect a diverse range of stakeholders and interest groups in different ways. Therefore, addressing sustainability problems is normally a highly contested process. In this context, the PhD Programme encourages pariticpatory multi-stakeholder research that is aimed at gaining an integrated understanding of both the material and non-material determinants underlying Africa's sustainability challenges.
Application
To find out more about this exciting new Doctoral Programme and how to apply for it, prospective students are encouraged to familiriase themselves with the relevant information pages on this website and email their (a) expression of interest, (b) research history and (c) bibliography of readings in sustainabiility, transdisciplinarity and complexity to the Programme Manager by no later than 18 September 2009.
Advert for Doctoral Programme (
