Prof Frans Swanepoel, Fellow in Residence at the Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, has been appointed Director: Strategic International Partnerships at the University of Pretoria (UP).

Prior to joining UP in 2016 he was Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research at the University of the Western Cape.

In this new capacity he will work closely with the Executive and Deans across the University to:

• enhance UP’s international presence by cultivating, sustaining and expanding strategic international partnerships with a deliberate focus on Africa,
• mobilise funding for internationalisation to sustain UP’s international activities and to facilitate the acquisition of international grants, and
• provide supportive leadership to achieve and sustain internationalisation at UP.

Prof Swanepoel’s research focuses on Agricultural Transformation in Africa. He serves on a number of high-level continental bodies, among others, as a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM, http://www.ruforum.org/) based in Uganda; the Steering Committee of the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD, http://awardfellowships.org/about-us/steering-committee/) based in Nairobi and funded by the Gates Foundation; the Advisory Board of the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI, https://sgciafrica.org/en-za/the-initiative); and as Board Member of the United Nations-endorsed Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network for Africa (FANRPAN, https://www.fanrpan.org/about/board-governors?block=who).  

Prof Swanepoel is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for African Development  at Cornell University, USA and was recently appointed as a Visiting Fellow to the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Western Australia. He is the Deputy Chair of the Australia-Africa University Network, established by UP in 2012.