13/07/2015

On the 7th of July 2015, the Sustainability Research Unit (SRU) won the NMMU Engagement Excellence Award (Team Award) for 2015.

 

The award aims to recognise and reward a team that:

  • Show evidence of integrating engagement into teaching and learning and research and scholarship
  • Make an outstanding contribution to advancing the NMMU`s engagement strategic priorities and goals over a sustained period of time
  • Are able to provide examples of best practice in the field of engagement

 

We are very proud of this achievement and are excited to uphold this level of community engagement.

See what the people at the Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS) have to say about the SRU here.

To us, sustainability is a way of life. It has many joys but also requires sacrifices and, above all, comes with responsibilities. Engagement, integral to sustainability, fits all three these categories. Joys, because what can be more satisfying than facilitating a dialogue between farmers, conservationists, township residents and retired businessmen, and seeing how they begin to find common ground before the morning is over? Sacrifices, because to engage properly and build trust with stakeholders, we have to often connect with them in the evenings and over weekends, quietly attend their meetings, assist them with funding proposals, visit their places of work and exchange knowledge them.  A responsibility because we have an ethical duty to be accountable to our community, our funders and fellow scientists. Therefore we publish all our engagement work in journals and books and on our web site and blog. Because the funding that fuels our academic lifestyle is not ours: we are merely borrowing it from present and future generations to help create a better life for all.

Dialogues such as this one, facilitated by SRU students and academics, help conservationists, farmers, township residents and business people find common ground around a common problem, in this case water security. Photo by Dirk Roux.

Dialogues such as this one, facilitated by SRU students and academics, help conservationists, farmers, township residents and business people find common ground around a common problem, in this case water security. Photo by Dirk Roux.