SARAO Human Capital Development Programme – Creating excellence in radio astronomy
The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) Human Capital Development Programme (HCD) was started in 2005 to ensure that a sustainable and demographically representative workforce of highly skilled engineers, scientists, technicians and artisans would be available to build, operate and use the SKA and MeerKAT radio telescope facilities, as well as other local radio astronomy experiments.
To date, the programme has provided funding to 1400+ postdoctoral fellows, postgraduate and undergraduate students studying science and engineering degrees, and to FET students training to be artisans. In addition, the programme is funding five Research Chairs at South African universities, as well as a large number of faculty positions, research fellows and visiting professors.
