Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation Update
- Prof. Lynn Morris
Key research and innovation achievements from the past quarter, showcasing Wits’ leadership and real-world impact.
Dear Colleagues
It’s been an incredible year for Wits research and innovation.
Wits is the top-ranked university in sub-Saharan Africa for innovation performance in the 2025 Global Innovation Index – a remarkable achievement. Our researchers and innovators are making their mark in the global arena – take Dr Precious Matsoso for example, who has just been named as one of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025 and Prof Benjamin Rosman who was named in the ‘Thinkers’ category of the TIME100 AI 2025 list. Congratulations!
Advancing AI, Quantum and Innovation
This year is the International Year of Quantum and Wits researchers are making extraordinary contributions to the field – you can find out more about how Africa’s quantum tech could rewrite the future. I was pleased to attend the launch of the new Chair in Photonics, with Dr Angela Dudley as the incumbent and to read about how quantum light unlocks new possibilities for future technologies.
The Wits Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery (MIND) Institute led by Prof. Benjamin Rosman has made a significant impact since its inception a year ago, bolstered by an award of US$1 million from Google.org and a partnership with IBM worth R33 million. An exciting AI & African Music pilot project is underway in collaboration with the Wits Innovation Centre (WIC). Sponsored by PhD candidate Charles Goldstuck the initiative is exploring how Generative AI and the music industry can co-exist.
The School of Computer Science also secured a cross-continental partnership to strengthen our work in cybersecurity and AI. Two new postgraduate cybersecurity degrees will launch in 2026, important given the current challenges that we face.
The Wits Innovation Centre and Wits Enterprise are actively working together, and this year have registered 3 new spin-out companies based on Wits research – more about this next year. The WIC is also doing some fantastic work with ‘agripreneurs’, Tshimologong hosted Fak’ugesi and various tech challenges, and students took their innovation to China as part of a global competition.
The AfriCAT project has been named a winner of the Mental Health Data Prize Africa. This home-grown digital tool could tackle adolescent mental health in Africa, another example of unique innovation from Wits.
Saving our Planet
Prof. Laura Pereira and others attended the COP30 meeting and warned that we have reached our first tipping point. A study from APES showed that sub-Saharan Africa has lost nearly a quarter of its biodiversity. The Future Ecosystems for Africa Programme launched the African Data Drive interactive tool designed to enable sustainable development across Africa through robust data integration and innovative spatial planning. The Wits Sappi Chair in Climate Change and Plantation Sustainability was also renewed with Prof. Mary Scholes as the incumbent.
The Wits Climate Risk Modelling Project has also been awarded funds from the Bezos Earth Fund to use cutting-edge machine learning and AI-based weather modelling to enhance medium-range forecasting across Africa.
We also launched Wits:H2O, a research centre to solve South Africa’s water challenges.
I was privileged to attend AGITATION, the WEF Nexus and Climate Change in South Africa, an exhibition inspired by Prof. Lenore Manderson at the Origins Centre.
Better health for all
Wits recently broke ground on the WITS BioHub – Africa’s first fully integrated “bedside-to-bench-to-breakthrough” research campus in Parktown that will consolidate biomolecular labs, BSL-3 facilities, start-up incubation and translational platforms.
I was also pleased to note that the Wits RHI is leading a study that will see individuals starting to use lenacapavir for HIV prevention, a huge milestone in this area.
Societal Impact
Universities South Africa has selected two case studies from Wits University to demonstrate the societal impact of Wits’ academic work – Biomimicry and Unzipped.
Partnerships
The VC’s newsletter has detailed the tremendous partnerships that Wits has built this year. One such partnership with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) saw the launch of the first joint International Research Centre in Africa.
New Faces
Please allow me to introduce you to three new senior members of my Division – Prof. Brett Bowman, the Senior Director: Research, Prof. Jennifer Fitchett, the Director: Postgraduate Affairs and Dr Samia Chasi, Head of the Internationalisation and Strategic Partnerships Office.
Roll of Honour
I would like to congratulate Witsies who have earned research or innovation awards in the last quarter, including:
- Professors Rachel Jewkes, Lyn Wadley, and Marietjie Venter who were awarded prestigious accolades for research excellence in gender studies, ecology, and emerging viral threats respectively. Jewkes received the Academy of Science of South Africa’s Science-for-Society Gold Medal and nine other Witsies were inducted as Fellows. Wadley and Venter also received the Royal Society of South Africa's John FW Herschel Medal and Marloth Medal respectively, and the Society welcomed four new Fellows from Wits University,
- Professors Andrew Forbes (Physics), Shabir Madhi (Vaccinology), and Derick Raal (Endocrinology) are for the second year running amongst the world’s most highly cited researchers on Clarivate's annual list. Forbes was also a co-recipient of the 2025 Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award,
- Prof. Maureen Joffe was awarded CANSA's highest accolade, the Oettlé Memorial Medal,
- Prof. Jonah Choiniere won the 2025 Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Robert Lynn Carroll Award,
- Dr Zaheera Jina Asvat was the recipient of the Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award at the 2025 South African Literary Awards,
- Prof. Nasreen Mahomed won a Leadership Excellence Award at the 2025 Health Excellence Awards
- Prof. Christopher Henshilwood and the Wits/SapienCE Blombos Museum of Archaeology were honoured for the Best Innovative Project at the Western Cape Cultural Affairs and Sport Awards,
- Dr Edward Nkadimeng won the Presidential Youth Award in AI at the G20 AI for Africa Forum,
- The Wits Institute for Collider Particle Physics team were the winners of the 2025 ODESS Prize for AI-powered environmental monitoring,
- Caitlin Wheeler is a Novartis Next Generation Scientist whose PhD zooms in on confounding questions about autoimmune liver disease, and
- Anele Siswana was the 2025 Next Generation Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Fellowship winner.
I would also like to congratulate Professors Bavesh Kana, Jonah Choiniere, Bruce Mellado and Nicola Christofides, amongst others, who received Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence Awards.
It was a pleasure to meet Coral Pillay and Kabelo Mbuyisa-Seonyane who have been named as Rhodes Scholars for 2026, as well as postgraduate students and PhD fellows who showcased quality research at the 16th Cross-Faculty Postgraduate Symposium.
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Thank You
You can catch up on all Wits’ research and innovation news online.
It has been a fantastic year and I look forward to working with you all in 2026.
Have a safe and blessed break!
Prof. Lynn Morris
Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation