CENLED’s director serves as: – Chairperson of the Economic Development Council of South Africa. – Council member of the Economic Society of South Africa (ESSA). – Official member of the Community of Practice for Entrepreneurial Universities of EDHE. – Reviewer: Journal in Urban and Regional Planning (JURP), University of the Philippines School of Urban and Regional Planning (UP SURP). USDP Project: The South Africa/United Kingdom Doctoral Project. The main purpose of the project is to support academics and professional staff at South African universities to undertake and complete doctoral studies within a period of four years or less. CENLED established a doctoral training academy in partnership with the University of Glasgow (u21 partner) and the University of Zululand. In this project, only permanent university staff members were recruited in the following research fields: local development; entrepreneurship; sustainable development goals 1, 2 and 4; education and fourth industrial revolution technologies that will support municipalities in local development to improve the quality of lives of communities. An innovative collaborative supervisory model was developed. In terms of this model the supervisors from the three universities are working in teams, and include an experienced supervisor, co-supervisor and early career researcher or novice supervisor to supervise a team of three to four PhD candidates, to ensure that supervisory capacity is developed. CENLED presented numerous conference papers and research activities that involves societal impact, sustainability, innovation and Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) included CENLED’s fourth and fifth scholarly books in the CENLED scholarly book series. The role of entrepreneurial ecosystems in sustainable local economic development, Centre for Local Economic Development: Topics in Local Development Series, vol. 4. Local economic development: Innovation, new technology and green economies, Centre for Local Economic Development: Topics in Local Development Book Series, vol. 5. Prof Talita Greyling Director In 2025 the first research centre globally dedicated to integrating Artificial Intelligence, Big Data analytics, and social science to advance wellbeing, quality of life, and sustainable societal development was established at the University of Johannesburg. Building on the internationally recognised Gross National Happiness.today (GNH.today) project, the Centre for Wellbeing, Artificial Intelligence and Social impact (C.WAIS) generates real-time wellbeing measures and cutting-edge research that informs policymakers, statistical agencies, international organisations and civil society. C.WAIS work extends beyond traditional economic metrics to incorporate subjective and experienced wellbeing, ensuring inclusive, evidence-based and sustainable development for communities, countries, continents and our planet and operates at the frontier of Fourth Industrial Revolution methodologies, combining machine learning and other AI technologies, advanced econometrics and behavioural science to solve pressing global challenges. C.WAIS research agenda focuses on real-time wellbeing data used by researchers, statistical services, and policymakers internationally under the following themes: Real-time measurement of subjective and experienced wellbeing AI-driven policy analytics Behavioural responses to crises Compliance, trust and governance Innovation and inclusive development Africa-focused wellbeing research CENTRE FOR WELLBEING, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND SOCIAL IMPACT (C.WAIS) School of Economics Prof Paulo Ferreira, Prof Fernando Rebola, Prof Rui Alexandre Castando, CENLED partners from Portugal and Sustainable Development Congress collaborators 60 61 College of Business and Economics | Annual Report 2025 College of Business and Economics | Annual Report 2025
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