Vol 1 - Support Services Ufs Ac Za - University of the Free State

foremost black economic empowerment (BEE)ratings agency – to train BEE practitioners across allsectors of the economy. This joint venture entailsthe establishment of a transformation office withinthe Centre for Business Dynamics at the UFS whichwill administer training programmes and conductcontract research on BEE.A joint research project with the Council forScientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), whichutilised yeast cultures from the culture collection ofthe UFS, serves as another fine example of thesuccessful commercialisation of research at theUniversity. This project led to the establishment of afor-profit company, Oxyrane, which attractedinternational inves tors. In addition to the successfulsale of the IP resulting from this collaborative research,the UFS will collect royalties on sales shouldproducts be successfully marketed.Considered as a whole, these successes confirmthat UFS research is making very good progress inexploiting external sources of income. However, it iscritical that the University continues to project animage of a research-orientated University in orderto effectively increase its commercial researchventures. In addition to the palpable potential ofthe Strategic Academic Clusters in this regard, theexpansion and duplication of projects such as thosediscussed in this section will be a key responsibilityof a new UFS Head for Research Commercialisationand Entre preneurship.Prof Frederick Fourie, Rector andVice-Chancellor of the UFS, and MrVuyo Jack, Executive Chairman of BEEratings agency Empowerdex.56