Academic activities

The Faculty’s Department of Mining Engineering launched a specialised Course for Managers in Risk Management (c-MiRM) in collaboration with Enterprises University of Pretoria.

The c-MiRM is aligned with internationally benchmarked risk management standards, and comprises seven modules with interactive assignments. It can be taken as a series of short courses over one, three or four days, as a two-day refresher course, as a longer Fundamentals Programme (12 contact sessions over 10 months) or as an Advanced Programme (17 contact sessions over six months). The presenter, Albert van der Vyver, is an experienced risk management consultant with a wealth of experience in the mining sector. He is internationally recognised for his expertise in safety, health and environmental risk management, and assessment.

The Faculty’s Department of Information Science, in collaboration with the Data-Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa (DIRISA), South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) and Network of Data and Information Curation Communities (NeDICC), presented a CODATA-RDA Research Data summer school in January 2020.

This is the first summer school presented in South Africa and provided early-career researchers with foundational data science skills. The participants were exposed to several useful tools and technologies, while also gaining technical skills for responsible and reproducible research practices. This will enable the students to work with their data in the transparent, effective and efficient manner required by 21st-century research practices.

The University of Pretoria, in collaboration with Gerotek, Applus IDIADA and the CSIR, hosted the Third Technology and Innovation Conference on the theme “Automotive development for Africa: Local challenges and technology solutions”.

The conference included two keynote addresses: “Create a Dream” by Carel Snyman, in which he described his journey of developing battery electric vehicles in South Africa for South Africa, and “Public Transport Strategic Plan” by MEC Jacob Mamabolo, in which he emphasised the cost of road accidents to society and the economy.

The Faculty’s Department of Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering has been ranked top in South Africa by the Minerals Education Trust Fund.

The Minerals Education Trust Fund (METF) was established by the minerals and mining industry in South Africa, with a view to bolstering universities’ activities in this sector. South African mining and minerals companies contribute annually to the fund to enhance the sustainability of specific departments at universities. Graduates from the Department are highly sought after in industry.