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HISTORY OF THE FOUNDATION’S POSTDOCTORAL PROGRAMME, ITS MODUS OPERANDI AND ACHIEVEMENTS
The Claude Leon Foundation derives from a bequest by
Claude Leon, and has been funding educational,
developmental, and human rights projects in South
Africa since 1972.
START OF THE POSTDOCTORAL PROGRAMME
The Claude Leon Foundation derives from a bequest by Claude Leon and has been funding educational and human rights projects in South Africa (SA) since 1972. In 1996 Dr Richard Frankel, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Claude Leon Foundation considered it important that the Foundation should support projects in tertiary education. He discussed this with Professor Stuart Saunders (Trustee) and asked him to investigate programmes at universities that the Foundation should support. Stuart Saunders met with Professors Mamphela Ramphele, Njabulo Ndebele, Carools Reinecke and Robert Segal (visiting Professor from Australia). Brian Yule and Jock Kleynhans (Trustees) attended as observers. Brian Yule tabled a letter he had received from Dr J Michael Wilkinson, Scientific Programme Manager of the Wellcome Trust’s International Interest Group, who had recently visited South Africa (SA). He recommended that “one very valuable option would be to provide for a system of postdoctoral fellowships, to be awarded competitively on the basis of excellence”. One of the projects that the group recommended was the support of a Postdoctoral Programme.
At the meeting of the Trustees in April 1997, Stuart Saunders presented the group’s recommendations and the Trustees decided that the Foundation should develop and start the Claude Leon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme at SA universities in the Faculties of Science, Engineering and Medical Sciences. Awards would be made to both SA and foreign postdoctoral scientists, who should increase the volume and quality of research output, transfer technical skills and generally enhance the research culture.
The first Fellows took up their Fellowships at SA Universities in 1998. Over the years the administration of the Postdoctoral Programme has evolved. This is a report of the various systems which have operated until the termination of the programme in 2020.
CRITERIA AND AWARDS PROCESS
The decision of the Trustees “that the Fellowships should be awarded on a competitive basis, taking the applicants’ academic achievements and potential as researchers into account”. The single criterion of excellence was a major contributor to the success of the programme and the excellent contribution that the Fellows made to the quality of research and outputs at S A Universities.
Applicants were required to have a PhD Degree and had to apply within 5 years of completing the PhD. It was preferable that candidates should undertake their research at a university other than the one where the PhD was obtained. Applicants and their proposed supervisors had to motivate if the applicant wished to stay at the same department. Applicants had to provide a description of the aims, background and proposed programme of research and were required to justify the choice of proposed supervisor and university department. The proposed supervisor also had to assess the applicant’s CV and research proposal and confirm that there were running expenses and facilities to carry out the research. The applicants had to provide the names of 2 referees. The proposed supervisor could not be a referee.
The universities were responsible for collecting and checking that the applicants had supplied all the information required before submission to the Leon Postgraduate Office before the 31 May each year. The Postgraduate Office was staffed by Tanya Stone (1998 – 2009), Gale Minnaar (2009 – 2020) and Sandy Dowling (2014 – 2020).
From 2012 to 2019 the total number of applications per year increased from 203 to 486 and the total number of applications was 2812 (Table 1). The total number of foreign and South African applicants was 1850 and 962 respectively (34.2% SA). The total number of male and female applications was 1643 and 1169 respectively (41.6% female).
Each year the applications were sent to initially to Professor Doug Rawlings and later to both Professors Doug Rawlings and Michael Cherry who allocated reviewers for the applications. Each reviewer received approximately 4 to 8 applications. The Postdoctoral Programme Office contacted the reviewers and sent them the applications which were returned by the end of September. The reviewers were requested to grade the applications: 65% – 69% as C, 70% - 74% as B, 75% - 79% as A and 80% and above as A+. Since the reviews required a substantial amount of work, the reviewers received thank you letters and book vouchers as a token of gratitude (value between R 1000 and R1500 depending on the number of reviews).
The reviewed and graded applications were then sent to Professor Renfrew Christie who reviewed and summarized all the A and A+ applications. In mid-October the Awards Committee of Professors Dave Woods (Chair), Doug Rawlings, Michael Cherry and Renfrew Christie met and considered all the A and A+ applications and samples of the B and C applications. The successful and unsuccessful candidates were informed by the Postgraduate Office.
Once the number of applications reached approximately 480, it would have been impossible to get reviewers for all the applications. The awards process was modified to include a pre-review process. The 480 applications were divided into 4 groups of approximately 120 applications which were sent to each of the four members of the Awards Committee. Each member reviewed their 120 applications and graded them in 3 groups, for review, unsuccessful and unsure. The Awards Committee met and considered all the unsure applications and decided whether they were unsuccessful or for review. The Committee also reviewed samples of each of the for review and unsuccessful groups. This process reduced the number of applications that should be reviewed to approximately 200.
The total number of successful applications between 2012 and 2019 was 372 (13.2% of the total number of applications) (Table 1). The total number of successful foreign and SA applications was 224 and 98 respectively (60.2% foreign). The total number of male and female successful applications was 194 and 142 respectively (38.2% female). The total number of fellows funded by the Claude Leon Foundation since 1998 was 585. The contribution and impact of the foreign postdocs was impressive and some have remained as academics at SA universities. More would have remained in SA if the Department of Home Affairs had not discriminated against foreign nationals wishing to work in SA.
The SA university which hosted the most Leon Fellowships was the University of Cape Town (179, 33.4%) followed by the University of Stellenbosch (136, 25.4%), University of the Witwatersrand, (68, 12.7%), Rhodes University (33, 6.2%) and University of KwaZulu Natal (29, 5%) (Table 2).
ADMINISTRATION AND MONITORING OF THE PROGRESS, APPLICATIONS FOR THE SECOND YEAR OF THE FELLOWSHIPS AND ATTENDANCE AT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES
The stipends for the Fellows were paid to the universities who were responsible for paying the Fellows in 4 installments. The value of the Fellowships increased from R 110 000.00 per year in 1998 to R 275 00.00 per year in 2020.
In 2010 the Claude Leon Foundation decided to award Conference Grants for Fellows to present papers at prestigious international conferences. This would enable the Fellows to make contact with other researchers and discuss their results with experts in their field of research. Fellows had to provide a report on their attendance at the conference. The value of the Conference Grants increased from R 25 000.00 in 2010 to R 45 000 in 2020.
At the end of the first year Fellows had to renew their Fellowships and provide progress reports on their research. The supervisors also had to provide progress reports. The Fellows and their Supervisors also had to provide a final report at the conclusion of their Fellowship. Stuart Saunders and Dave Woods reviewed all the different progress reports and applications for Conference Grants. These reports and applications were of a very high standard and all were approved except for one Fellow whose Fellowship was terminated at the end of his first year. The Leon Foundation Postdoctoral Sub-Committee met twice a year in March and October and considered the progress of the Postdoctoral Programme. The minutes of the Sub-Committee meetings were discussed at the meetings of the Leon Foundation Trustees.
QUALITY OF THE FELLOWS
Stuart Saunders and Dave Woods reviewed all the final reports of the Fellows and their supervisors and can confirm that the Fellows were highly productive, assisted with the supervision of PhD and MSc students and established international research collaborations. The supervisors were very impressed with the high quality of the Fellows who made a huge contribution to their research groups. To illustrate the excellent quality of the Fellows and their research outputs, below is a very small sample of extracts of the 585 supervisor’s final reports.
“He made a huge contribution to a new research project. He is a researcher of a very high calibre”.
“His tenure was particularly productive and he published extensively in high quality international journals. He fostered the development of international research links particularly with groups in China and Thailand. The University (Pretoria) was so impressed with his performance that they appointed him as a lecturer”.
“I foresee a great future for her and feel strongly that she has been an outstanding ambassador for the Claude Leon Fellowship.”
“Her quality as a Fellow is shown by the offer of a lectureship at Oxford University”.
“She delivered research of a very high quality, as evidenced by her first 3 papers being published in very prestigious journals (impact factors of 13.9 (2 papers) and 9.4)”.
‘’She has been one of the most effective and focused Postdoctoral Fellows that I have hosted. She was able to successfully compete for the Royal Society Newton International Fellowship and move to Oxford University.’’
“She was an exceptional Postdoctoral Fellow”.
CAREER PATHS OF 87 OF THE FIRST 100 FELLOWS
An investigation of the first 100 Fellows was able to track down the career paths of 87 Fellows.
Of the 87 Fellows 53% were South Africans and 47% were foreign. Twenty-two per cent of the SA Fellows are overseas and 88% have remained in SA. Twenty-seven per cent of the foreign Fellows have stayed in SA and 73% are overseas.
An important statistic is that 75% of the Fellows are still academics and 63% are associate or full professors. The majority of the of the associate and full professors are at top ranking universities in SA and overseas. Twenty per cent are in industrial positions, almost all related to their research areas in engineering, chemical production, medicine and diagnostics or agriculture. Also, in this group are 3 Fellows who did research in Mathematics and Cosmology and are now in senior positions at financial institutions. The remaining 8% of the Fellows in this group are in research management or government positions.
The high quality of the Fellows selected is reflected by their career paths and the reports of the supervisors.
FINANCES
The Claude Leon Foundation funded 585 Fellowships, translocation costs and conference travel between 1998 and 2020 at a total cost of R 204 397 151.12. (Table 3). The administrative costs were R 5 758 545.74 (2.8%) which is remarkable compared to some other institutions funding Postdoctoral Fellowships. The low administrative costs and success of the Programme were due to the voluntary work undertaken by Stuart Saunders, Dave Woods, Doug Rawlings, Renfrew Christie, Michael Cherry and staff. The strong support of the Chairman, Bill Frankel and the Board of Trustees was also very important.
CLOSURE OF THE CLAUDE LEON FOUNDATION POSTDOCTORAL PROGRAMME
The totality of annual grants made by the Foundation increased exponentially in the decade to 2017, totaling just under R 60 million in 2017. This was in line with the remarkable annual returns achieved by the Foundation’s fund managers during most of those years. However, annual returns decreased substantially from 2017 onwards resulting in the Foundation spending significantly more in each of the last 3 years to 2019 than was the annual return on investments. The Postdoctoral Programme was the Foundation’s largest programme with an annual budget of R 20 million. The Foundation was also supporting other educational programmes and youth development programmes and also crucial programmes in the social justice field and the Constitutional framework. The Trustees had no alternative but to review all the programmes that the Foundation was supporting. It was clear that the Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme was unsustainable on a budget of less than R 15 million per annum. With great sadness and much reluctance the Trustees decided to close down the Programme in 2020, but of course honouring all existing commitments. Before doing so the Trustees made every effort, but unfortunately without success to find suitable partners, including the National Research Council, who could either take over the Programme or share the financial burden. The Foundation has also closed down some of the other programmes in the education and youth development fields.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks to Brian Yule for information regarding the origins of the Postdoctoral Programme; and the analysis of the career paths of the 87 Fellows. Thanks also to Gale Minnaar and Jill Pointer for all the administrative and financial details respectively; and Bill Frankel for assistance.
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