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ltr) Prof Anton Ströh, Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Agriculture; Prof Mike Wingfield, Director of FABI and the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology; Mike Edwards, CEO of Forestry South Africa; Rodney Hearne, DANROC (Pty) Ltd, Sub-Tropical Fruit and Nuts and Banana Growers Association of South Africa (BGASA) and Prof Robin Crewe, UP Vice-Principal and SERA Relationship Manager. |
The Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) at the University of Pretoria (UP) celebrated its tenth year with a colloquium and gala dinner on 14 May 2008.
The SERA Centre for Applied Mycological Studies (CAMS) is located at FABI and number of SERA participants are also a part of FABI - a post-graduate research institute that resides within UP's Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. The Institute's research and education focuses broadly on the improvement of crops related to forestry and agriculture, and it links departments such as Genetics, Biochemistry, Plant Science, Plant Production, Microbiology and Plant Pathology, Zoology and Entomology.
FABI's tenth anniversary coincides with UP's centenary this year. According to Prof Mike Wingfield, Mondi Professor of Forest Protection and Director of FABI, the establishment of FABI has been a resounding success in the history of the University. Prof Wingfield described the exceptional progress that FABI has made since its official inception in 1998. "It has grown and excelled far beyond the expectations of its stakeholders, the University of Pretoria and the many funding agencies, government, state and private companies that support its research".
"Individual FABIans have won countless awards for research excellence and the Institute as a whole has been the recipient of numerous awards and accolades. All of these accomplishments have come to us in only ten years. One can only wonder what the next ten years will bring", he said. Prof Wingfield recently made national headlines for having being elected a fellow of the American Phytopathological Society (APS).
FABI rose from modest beginnings with a group of 50 core academics, technical staff and post-graduate students. The multinational group has now grown to 180 and is very diverse in its composition - Prof Wingfield says that at least 30 different languages are spoken at any one time.
Speaking at the celebrations, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and SERA Relationship Manager for UP, Prof Robin Crewe, applauded the work that FABI has done over the past ten years and stressed how important research into plant, soil, and water sciences has become for the country, the continent, and internationally.
The celebrations included a colloquium to showcase the activities of the DST-NRF Centres of Excellence (CoE). FABI houses the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology (CTHB), which was one of the first six Centres of Excellence to be recognised by the DST and NRF.
The CoEs are physical or virtual centres of research which channel current capacity and resources to enable researchers to join forces across disciplines and institutions, on locally relevant and globally competitive long-term projects. In doing so the partnering contributes to improving the quest for research excellence and capacity development.
Source: University of Pretoria
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