College of Business and Economics | Annual Report 2024 34 TALENT MANAGEMENT AND CAPACITY BUILDING During 2024, our staff complement in addition to Prof Fiona Tregenna comprised Associate Professor Elvis Avenyo, Senior Researcher Dr Phumzile Ncube as well as administrator Ms 2 Koketso Manyane, Manager Mrs Melanie Ridgard and several research assistants. This is in addition to 7 postdoctoral research fellows (PDRFs). Our special appointees include 8 Distinguished Visiting Professors, 5 Visiting Professors, 5 Professors of Practice, 6 Visiting Associate Professors, 27 Senior Research Associates, and 5 Research Associates. Among these are leading global scholars, most of whom also published impactful journal articles and were engaged in SARChI-ID activities in various ways. We are proud of having such a dynamic team with related research interests, making for vibrant exchange and development of ideas. Our student registrations during 2024 comprised 12 doctoral students, 11 master’s and 2 honours students. We provide our students with a range of additional training and development activities, both within and outside of UJ. Our flagship doctoral programme ‘PhD in Economics with Specialisation in Industrial Development’ continues expanding each year. We were very proud of our master’s student, Nokulinda Ngwenya, who won the prestigious national award ‘Economic Society of South Africa Founders’ Medal’ in the Honours category for the year 2023, for her honours research project undertaken with us in the previous year that was judged the best honours research project in economics in South Africa. The DSI project on innovation built in a strong element of capacity development. Some PDRFs had the opportunity for mentored research and skills transfer through involvement in this project. As part of the project, we ran a three-day workshop in May 2024, building on the successful workshop we held in October 2023. The workshop, which comprised of lectures by local and international experts, was open and free of charge to students, innovation practitioners and policymakers. The primary emphasis was on how concepts in innovation, innovation policy and management can be applied to socio-economic outcomes of economies, sectors, and firms, as well as exploring its applications in the South African context. We continued to host our biweekly Industrial Development and Policy Seminar Series. This series provides opportunities for students, PDRFs and staff to present their research in a seminar format, which serves a vital role in the exchange of ideas Senior Researcher, Dr Phumzile Ncube, speaking at TIPS: a conference that we co-hosted President Cyril Ramaphosa addressing the Elijah Barayi Memorial Lecture that we co-hosted Prof Elvis Avenyo and DVP Prof Antonio Andreoni speaking at the African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (Aporde) course
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