Rhodes University¡¯s Centre for Postgraduate Studies (CPGS) has added a €950 000 EU-funded project to its stable of successful postgraduate support initiatives.

¡°Only 9% of close to 200 applications were successful, so we are especially delighted with this outcome,¡± explained Director of the CPGS, Professor Sioux McKenna. ¡°For this project, we will be working hard to ensure that we can offer truly outstanding postgraduate supervision in an enabling environment.¡±

The new three-year project is a collaboration between a consortium of universities around the world, including Kenya, the Netherlands, and Turkey.

The collaboration will enable Rhodes University to offer a series of seminars on knowledge production and dissemination, which will be open to all postgraduates.

The new project, Creating Postgraduate Collaborations, builds on two existing postgraduate projects, Strengthening Postgraduate Supervision and Enhancing Postgraduate Environments, which have been undertaken by CPGS in an ongoing collaboration with the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning (CHERTL).

¡°The funding from EU Erasmus+ will allow us to work collaboratively to further enhance the research-rich nature of the postgraduate experience at Rhodes University and beyond,¡± said Prof McKenna.

To ensure that the benefits of the project are extended into multiple departments and faculties, CPGS has partnered with Pharmacy, Environmental Science, Commerce and the School of Languages at Rhodes University.

¡°Building on the short courses already offered by CHERTL and the CPGS, this project will offer a Winter School which will focus on methodologies and approaches to research with various streams for different disciplines,¡± Prof McKenna explained. 

EU Erasmus+ was also responsible for funding the Enhancing Postgraduate Environments project, to the tune of €745 000. This project followed the success of the Strengthening Postgraduate Supervision project, which was funded by the Dutch government through Nuffic and the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) to the amount of a million euros.