Centres of Excellence
The Centres of Excellence (CoEs) are physical or virtual centres of research that concentrate existing research excellence and capacity and resources, to enable researchers to collaborate across disciplines and institutions on long-term projects that are locally relevant and internationally competitive, in order to enhance the pursuit of research excellence and capacity development.
The Department of Science & Innovation (formerly the Department of Science and Technology) and the National Research Foundation’s Centres of Excellence (DSI-NRF CoEs) funding instrument was launched in 2004 with the establishment of seven CoEs. Since then, three additional CoEs were established between 2009 and 2013 with five new CoEs established in 2014.
The five key performance areas of the CoEs are: research/knowledge production; education and training; Information brokerage; networking; and service rendering. Over the past decade the Advisory Boards for each of the CoEs have played an important steering and oversight role in ensuring the success of the CoEs. Six CoEs are hosted by WITS University.
