THE SOUTH African Cultural Observatory (SACO) is looking for its next cohort of outstanding young scholars interested in doing research on South Africa’s arts, culture and heritage sectors and the creative and cultural industries.
The SACO announced its latest round of scholarships and bursaries for the 2017 season late last year, with a set of honours, masters and doctoral grants on offer, with a suite of available grants totalling in excess of R500 000.00.
“In the current context, it is critical that organisations do everything within their power to support young scholars. As a research institute, the development of strong young academics is critical for the pipeline of future researchers that will service South Africa – and we want to ensure we are supporting scholars interested in the field of cultural economics, statistics and in the arts, heritage and culture sectors.
“This is a great opportunity for talented young researchers, and as deadline for submissions looms at the end of January, and we really encourage all students interested in doing research on the cultural economy, cultural and creative industries and/or related sectors to take advantage of the South African Cultural Observatory’s grant programme,” said Professor Richard Haines, SACO Chief Executive.
The SACO scholarship and bursary scheme has been running for the past two years with nine awards issued to students studying at universities countrywide.
“In this round, we are hoping to award a minimum of six and a maximum of eleven scholarships and bursaries by around mid-February, in time for the start of the academic year,” he added. “The programme is meant to support existing studies and complement funding sourced from other awards.”
The Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) established the Cultural Observatory to advance research in the field of cultural information systems.
“As DAC’s informative ‘nerve centre’ – which provides the strategic vision and the organising principle for the development of cultural indicators and information systems for the South African context as well as statistics based on the sector needs – our scholarship programme supports the sector needs by generating both qualitative, quantitative and mixed research,” said Haines.
SACO Deputy Director of Research, Njabulo Sithebe, added that research capacity is a critical need in South Africa and that the SACO scholarship will help build this future capacity among cultural economy researchers.
The scholarship and bursary programme targets only South African citizens and students who:
Priority will be given to designated groups. The scholarship/bursary is awarded for a maximum of two years to be distributed to the student by the recipient university. Applicants that align will the SACO and DAC National Research Agenda outputs will be given preference. The research agenda is available here.
All applications must be submitted on the SACO website by Tuesday 31 January 2016 at 4pm: www.southafricanculturalobservatory.co.za/scholarship-application. For enquires: contact ntombizodwa.mashologu@nmmu.ac.za or SACO office on 041 504 4930.
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