SAF-ADAPT 2022 Summer School

The South Africa / Flanders Climate Adaptation Research and Training Partnership (SAF-ADAPT) is funded by the Government of Flanders, and is a 4.5-year collaborative project between three South African universities (University of Cape Town, University of Fort Hare, and University of Venda); KLIMOS, a consortium of Belgian universities and research groups; and the South African Adaptation Network.

One of the sets of activities of the SAF-ADAPT project is to develop and implement a joint summer school research skills programme to build the capacity of postgraduate and postdoctoral students to design and deliver research for impact, and facilitate the exchange of skills and experience between staff and students.

The overarching purpose of the summer school programme is to support the quality, relevance and impact of research in complex topics relating to climate change in an African context.

Recognizing the fast pace of change in the field and the varying strengths of disciplinary expertise amongst universities, supervisors are also welcome to attend and/or co-deliver on the summer school in order to promote an enabling environment for the ECRs to practice their new learning from the summer school once back home.

The summer school aspires to adopt an Afrocentric pedagogy which promotes transformative social learning that is inter-disciplinary and context-sensitive. The specific topics covered vary year-on-year, though always include a balance of:

• The latest developments in climate change science, policy and practice

• The theory and practice of undertaking research on complex problems, across disciplines and in

• Collaboration with non-academic stakeholders

• Research impact beyond journal publications

• Career progression in academia and beyond (incl. presentation skills, supervising students, grant proposal writing, tenure tracks)