 Message from HEARD's Director, Prof Alan Whiteside I have just three weeks of sabbatical left. It has been good to be in the northern hemisphere through a spring, summer and now an autumn. HEARD's Gender and HIV and AIDS Project Gender and gender inequalities are a central aspect in the transmission of HIV throughout the world, particularly in southern and eastern Africa South African Work-Family Symposium The South African Work-Family Symposium where employers can gauge their own progress on work-family policy against other players in the industry will take place on 30 November in Cape Town. Increasing African Capacity Central to HEARD's Capacity Building agenda, the Young Researchers Initiative (YRI) aims to provide support to young researchers based in eastern and southern Africa to produce high quality, accessible research on HIV/AIDS. At Last, Progress in Developing an AIDS Vaccine According to recent media reports, an experimental HIV vaccine has for the first time cut risk of infection. HEARD's Director, Prof Alan Whiteside was invited by OUPblog to post his views on this recent development which he says this will lead to new investment and energy in the development of vaccines. OUPblog is Oxford University Press' blogosphere for learning, understanding and reflection. A New HEARD Research Agenda on XDR-TB In response to the emergence of drug resistant TB in South Africa, HEARD has set up a research project to explore the reasons for the high levels of hospital transmission of XDR-TB.   | Newsletter Issue 1 October 2009
In order to forge links between research and HEARD's longstanding ethos of knowledge sharing and skills transfer, HEARD's PhD Programme aims to foster research excellence in the SADC region, Uganda and Kenya through the training of highly qualified and competent HIV/AIDS researchers. Conceived and planned in the latter half of 2008, the Programme began in early 2009 with the appointment of project staff, and the award of seven scholarships to the University of KwaZulu-Natal, two to the University of the Orange Free State and three to the University of Cape Town. The Programme is managed by Professor Eleanor Preston-Whyte who, together with the programme assistant, Ms Hedderwick, is based at HEARD. All senior members of the project staff and supervisors have published widely in the area of HIV/AIDS. Professors Frikkie Booysen and Nicoli Natrass supervise the students at the Universities of the Free State and Cape Town respectively. In Durban, supervisors from within the disciplines in which the students are registered - Economics, Nursing, Psychology and various branches of Development Studies - have been appointed, and the students who have so far arrived on campus, are preparing dissertation proposals for submission to the Higher Degrees Committees of the respective Faculty Boards. In all, 9 students are in place across the three universities, and the remainder will arrive at the start of 2010. Funding was budgeted for a limited number of meetings between the students from the different universities, and for attendance at local HIV/AIDS conferences. For example, students attended this year’s 4th South African AIDS Conference. A distinctive feature of the Programme on the campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, is the delivery of a creative Phd Enrichment Programme by Professor Preston-Whyte. She and Ms Hedderwick meet the Durban-based students every two weeks to discuss the latest publications and trends in HIV/AIDS, both internationally and in their respective countries of origin. This not only keeps the students informed of the trajectory of the disease and of new treatment options, but, because they come from different disciplines, it allows them to develop multidisciplinary insights which deepen their appreciation of the complexities of the global epidemic, and how this impacts on their own region. The students' supervisors join these meetings when they can, and add immeasurably to the level of the debate. In the interim weeks between discussing HIV/AIDS, the group meets to hone the students' conceptual thinking and writing skills. The major vehicle for this is the reading together of African novels and other literature written on the continent in a wide variety of genre and style. At some sessions the students present papers on their work. These lead to discussions of broad methodological and ethical concerns raised by HIV/AIDS research, and to the influence of differing disciplinary paradigms on the nature of the data collected, and the conclusions drawn, from field research. These are issues of major concern in the Social Sciences, and it is critical that the students are fully aware of them. Once again, the participation of the supervisors in these debates is invaluable. The students appear to enjoy the weekly discussions and, indeed, the number of meetings was increased at their request. Undertaking Phd study is often a long, demanding and lonely journey; the Phd Enrichment Programme has been designed to address this. Full notes are kept of each meeting which will enable an evaluation of the process to be undertaken at the end of the Programme. |
