Celebrating 20 years of SARAO’s Human Capital Development
Initiated in the early 2000s in response to South Africa’s participation in the SKA project, the HCD Programme was designed to rapidly grow a cohort of radio astronomers and engineers, which was initially very small and lacking demographic diversity.
Today, the numbers speak volumes about the programme’s success:
- SARAO has awarded more than 1800 grants to fund faculty positions, postdoctoral fellowships, and postgraduate/undergraduate students.
- Of these grants, more than 80% have been awarded to South Africans.
- A major success is the transformation of the scientific pipeline: 70% of those South African grants have gone to Black SA citizens, and 35% to SA Women.
The programme has successfully built a pipeline that extends from school level through higher education, ensuring an appropriately skilled workforce for facilities like MeerKAT and the future SKA.
