FIRST AnnouncemenT

2^nd NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GLOBAL CHANGE

1 – 5 December 2014

Organised by

Department of Science and Technology

and

National Research Foundation

1^st Announcement

The South African Global Change Science Committee, together with the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, are excited to announce the hosting of the Second DST/NRF National Global Change Conference in Port Elizabeth between the dates of 1 and 5 December 2014, with the general theme of “Global Change Research in South Africa: towards integration across disciplines, sectors and scales”.

The Global Change Grand Challenge (GCGC) is now in its 4^th year of implementation and together with related NRF/DST programmes on global change issues have made significant progress in the two years since the first NRF/DST conference was held. Plans for future global change research are under consideration, and this conference will provide an opportunity to inform these developments. In addition, several new national, regional and international initiatives focused in southern Africa have been or are being established in the area of global change research and it would be useful to consider how these could be better integrated with existing and planned national research efforts.

The main purpose of this conference is to bring together the diverse global change research community in South Africa in order to share recent progress across the broad scope of the global change programme. This should provide the opportunity for greater trans-disciplinary and inter-institutional integration and collaboration. The conference will provide an opportunity for post graduate research students and emerging researchers to locate their work in a broader context; while providing a platform for awareness of the multiple opportunities that exist for career development.

Please use this link http://tinyurl.com/ksdr5g5 to the expression of interest form which will provide the organizers with an initial indication of attendance, and gather ideas and suggestions for activities and themes at the conference. This link will expire at close of business on 8^th August 2014. A call for registration will then be circulated by end August 2014.

Yours sincerely

Prof Guy Midgley

Chairperson, South African Global Change Science Committee

Issued by the University Research Office