NRF Annual Report 2018

PART B: PERFORMANCE
10.4.2 Enhance strategic international
engagements
SAIAB is actively involved regionally and internationally at
a number of levels, including active research collaborations
(formal and informal), international workshops and
conferences, international organisation representation,
editorships of international journals and research visits.
The facility has brokered 12 active joint international
agreements/collaborations, and collaborated formally and
informally with 21 countries during the year. Highlights
included:
• Collaboration with scientists from Norway, Canada,
France, Australia and Seychelles to study the movement
patterns and behaviour of coastal fishery species, sharks
and stingrays, using acoustic telemetry technology.
The facility also hosted the national Acoustic Tracking
Array Platform (a partner of the Canadian-based Ocean
Tracking Network project) that collects data on aquatic
animals tagged by 12 local organisations, which also
have global reach collaborations; and
• Long-term collaborations are being fostered with,
among others, the Technische Universität Dresden,
Germany and University of Hong Kong.
SAEON, as a leading international environmental research
institution, served on 31 international and 47 local
scientific committees and working groups during the year
- including the Southern African Science Service Centre
for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management, the
Indian Ocean Rim Country Academic Group, the National
Spatial Planning Data Repository and JCOMM of the
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity
and Ecosystem Services. Other international collaborative
highlights included:
• The new era of blue enlightenment that was ushered
in by the launch of Brazil-EU-SA cooperation in Atlantic
research and innovation. This flagship initiative,
launched in Lisbon in July, aims to improve scientific
understanding and promote technological advances that
will facilitate sustainable growth of the blue economy
within the broader perspective of climate change; and
• Oslo, Norway, Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (PGS) has
entered into a data-sharing agreement with the South
African Marine Research and Exploration Forum for
use of surplus data to improve understanding of the
oceans. Data recordings such as temperatures and
salinity through the water column, currents and weather
observations are collected as a part of the PGS seismic
acquisition process to improve seismic imaging. This
activity has created an extensive multi-client data
library with corresponding surplus data. In 2017, PGS
announced its intention to open the surplus database
for research on the ocean dating back to 1991.
Two SAEON employees attended and presented posters
at the 2017 Wetlands in Drylands Research Network
Conference at Macquarie University in Sydney. Thereafter,
they were involved in activities such as:
• Field trip to the Macquarie marshes to learn how local
scientists manage large-scale (in both time and area)
research projects and interventions in a semi-arid
climate, with multiple stakeholders and confounding
influences of drought and flood cycles;
• Visit Prof Brian Timms, a retired aquatic ecologist,
during a field trip to the ephemeral pans of the Paroo
(Pai-Roo) region located in the north-west of New South
Wales and south-west Queensland. The collection of
swamps, lakes and clay pans found here is the best
reference for the pans of the Northern Cape; and
• Visit to the laboratories of the University of New South
Wales to exchange ideas on egg-bank sampling
and hatching strategies. The University is currently
characterising pans in the Pilbara region of Western
Australia, which could be comparative with the Northern
Cape pans.
SAEON was represented at the 26th annual conference
of the Southern African Association for Research in
Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, hosted
by the University of Botswana in Gabarone. The theme of
the Conference was ‘Pursuing sustainable and inclusive
quality education through research informed practice in
mathematics, science and technology’. SAEON presented
on how participation in marine science camps influences
learners’ perception of science.
NRF Annual Report 2017/18 105