Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme (THRIP) a business unit of the National Research Foundation (NRF) which is funded by the Department of Trade and Industry; will be hosting its annual awards function on 19 August 2003. The Minister of Trade and Industry, Alec Erwin, will present the awards at the function.
THRIP supports more than 250 projects with grants amounting to R130m. In 2002 THRIP managed to release 94% of the money initially awarded from the grand budget, and says that it is encouraging that there has been a 27% demand in growth on the programme.
THRIP's marketing focus is on research at Technikons and 'historically Black universities', increasing black and female student numbers, and increasing projects supported by SMMEs and BEEs. In order to stimulate demand on THRIP, it will also target industry, which will increase the demand for R&D service on all higher education institutions.
Some of THRIP's many success stories include The Vibration Research and Testing Centre being designed and built in partnership and collaboration between the University of Durban Westville and Eskom. This facility will provide skills development, capacity building, skills management training and research outputs in engineering. Part of this project will be the development of a world-class laboratory to conduct research, testing and investigations in the field of conductor mechanical oscillations. This facility will be one of four in the world and the only such facility in the southern hemisphere.
Another is Sun Space, a South African company that has made micro-satellites for US space agency NASA, Australia's micro-satellite programme, and for Germany and South Korea. It was established four years ago by a group of Stellenbosch University students with the support of THRIP. The micro-satellites are compact, cost-effective devices used for among other things, weather monitoring, tracking refugees and forest fires from space. Today the business has an annual revenue of over R20m all in foreign revenue and has helped lure back some of South Africa's top scientific brains.
The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) was designed and built as part of a THRIP project by the faculty of engineering at the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education with input from the PBMR project team in only nine months. PBMR is a new type of inherently safe high temperature gas nuclear power plant. It is now being developed by Eskom and is almost certainly the country's biggest civilian technology science and engineering research and development programme with approximately 500 people working on the project.
For more information contact Etresia du Plessis, THRIP, 012 481 4040, [email protected]
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