UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
HONORARY CONFERRING
Wednesday, 6 December 2017 at 11.00 a.m.
TEXT OF THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY PROFESSOR LORRAINE HANLON on 6th December 2017, on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa on Minister Naledi Pandor.
Good afternoon ladies, gentlemen, colleagues, graduates and distinguished guests. My warmest congratulations to each and every one of you who have just graduated. Today is a wonderful day for you, your friends and families, and all those who have helped you to achieve this milestone. It is a day for recognising your achievements and for well-earned celebration.
Today we also celebrate the achievements of one particular individual who will be awarded a doctorate `Honoris Causa’ in Science at UCD. This degree is an honorific title granted to recognise a person of distinction whose knowledge, wisdom and global impact are considered exemplary. We are privileged to have with us today the Minister of Science & Technology of the Republic of South Africa, Ms. Naledi Pandor, on whom this degree will be conferred.
Minister Pandor has dedicated her career to education and science policy, based on her long-held belief that these form the twin pillars of sustainable social and economic transformation, with a fundamental role in reducing inequality.
- Pandor was born in Durban, but left South Africa with her family, going into exile from 1961 to 1984, first in Lesotho and Zambia, then to England and, later, Botswana. She matriculated at Gaborone Secondary School in Botswana, and completed a professional qualification in teaching, before returning to London to complete a postgraduate diploma and a Master’s degree in Education, focusing on: “Education in South Africa and the issues of race.” She later obtained a Master’s degree in General Linguistics from the University of Stellenbosch.
- Pandor taught English in London and Botswana before joining the University of Cape Town as a senior lecturer in 1989. She left the university to become Executive Director of the Desmond Tutu Educational Trust. By the time South Africa held its landmark democratic elections in 1994, she had taken a leading role in the formation of ANC education policies and became a Member of Parliament in the first post-apartheid Government, subsequently amassing impressive experience in numerous positions of leadership in public office.
In addition to her service as Minister of Science and Technology (2009-2012, 2014-date), Ms. Pandor has also served as Minister of Education (2004-2009), and as Minister of Home Affairs from 2012 to 2014 and serves on the National Executive Committee of the ANC.
One of the Minister’s key goals in Government has been to widen access to higher education, and ensuring that educational institutions are representative of all the people of South Africa. I mention, as an example, the South African Research Chairs Initiative. This programme was set-up in 2006 to counter the brain drain from South Africa, by establishing research chairs to attract and retain excellent researchers. In 2015, the Minister took decisive steps to counter the significant gender imbalance among chair-holders, by establishing 20 new chairs specifically for outstanding women scholars. This action has resulted in an increase in the percentage of female chair-holders from 20 percent in 2012 to 39 percent today.
Minister Pandor’s other key policy goal in Government has been in building the country’s competitive edge in research and innovation; an edge that she believes is the key to positioning South Africa in the global economy and to responding to the challenges of social transformation.
In the Minister’s words: “Science not only enables us to more decisively respond to major societal challenges, but also plays a critical part in helping to foster international partnership, friendship and solidarity.”
The situation in South Africa regarding the development of astronomy and space science, the subjects closest to my own research interests, has changed dramatically in recent years, thanks to Minister Pandor’s leadership. The South African National Space Agency was established in 2010 with a mandate that includes use of data from satellites to provide products and services for sustainable agriculture and food security; integrated water resources management; sustainable forestry management, as well as urban planning and infrastructure monitoring. Development of an optical Earth Observation satellite is planned to support food security and disaster management across the continent and will be a key element of South African contributions to a broader continental effort to leverage the potential of space for development, connecting research and innovation with sustainable development goals.
Back down to Earth, the Minister and her team successfully won a competitive bid for the siting of part of the future Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope in South Africa. This will be a transformative piece of global astronomy infrastructure into the next decade, and Africa is playing a leading role. Not only will SKA produce science that changes our understanding of the universe, but economic benefits from this investment will be achieved through foreign direct investment and through the development of the innovative new technologies needed to make the telescope deliver on its scientific promise. For example, building the SKA telescopes is expected to accelerate the development time of next generation wireless telecommunications technology by as much as 4 years.
Ireland is now taking its place among international astronomy organisations, such as the European Southern Observatory, which we plan to join next year, and the LOFAR radio astronomy project, which we have recently joined. While Ireland has been a member of the European Space Agency since the early 1970’s, we are now actively developing a national space policy and building capacity and skills in the space sector by developing the country’s first satellite, EIRSAT-1. Some of you in the audience are tangible evidence of UCD’s role in delivering that growth in capacity!
Now more than ever, strengthening the exchange of knowledge and experiences among international institutions and research groups, and promoting new partnerships and collaborations, is much needed and confers benefits to all.
UCD’s Space Science group has actively collaborated with Boyden Observatory and the University of the Free State in developing a telescope to help us understand the physics of the some of the biggest explosions in the cosmos, the short-lived gamma-ray bursts. With the recent ground-breaking scientific discoveries connecting gravitational waves to some of these bursts, we now plan to build a next generation telescope with our South African partners to rapidly chase the fading light from these cataclysmic events. In the future, I have no doubt, SKA will also be an engine of discovery for the transient universe. A multi-wavelength, multi-messenger approach, that connects light across the spectrum, with particles and gravitational waves, will yield many profound new scientific discoveries in the next 20 years.
We hope that today’s occasion marks the beginning of even richer engagement, collaboration and discovery between UCD Physics and our South African colleagues in the future.
Minister Pandor has already received many international accolades, including the 2016 Award for Science Diplomacy by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Today, with the conferring of the doctorate Honoris Causa of Naledi Pandor at UCD, we recognise an outstanding political leader committed to scientific advancement and cooperation across the African continent and beyond and we celebrate the transformative role that Ms. Pandor has played as an unstinting advocate for the importance of education and science in moving Africa forward, empowering its citizens, reducing inequality and inspiring the next generation.
Thank you.
Praehonorabilis Praeses, totaque Universitas,
Praesento vobis hanc meam filiam, quam scio tam moribus quam doctrina habilem et idoneam esse quae admittatur, honoris causa, ad Gradum Doctoratus Scientiae; idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo, totique Academiae.