Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology
Prof RF Sandenbergh, Dean
Telephone number: 012 420 2440
Fax number: 012 362 5173
E-mail address: dean@eng.up.ac.za
Preface by the Dean
The Faculty is amongst the leading tertiary institutions for training professionals in engineering, the built environment and information technology. The Faculty strives to be locally relevant and internationally competitive by offering innovative programmes backed by relevant research and community involvement. The faculty leads in education innovation, the establishment of new courses and programmes and an emphasis on innovation and communication skills.
The programmes offered by the Faculty remain popular as indicated by the growing number of students applying and enrolling. Access to the programmes is facilitated by support and development activities such as the TRAC Lab, the Tshebo Koloing Mobile Laboratory, the Teachers Outreach Programme, the University of Pretoria Foundation Year Programme, the Five Year Programme in Engineering, and the IT special programme. The success of these programmes is encouraging as indicated by the growing number of previously disadvantaged people who enroll and complete the programmes successfully. The faculty is also attracting larger numbers of international students, especially from the SADC countries.
The activities of the faculty range from involvement in awareness and upliftment projects, through formal teaching and research activities to community involvement via professional consultation and service on professional bodies. Many of these activities have been referred to already. Staff members are encouraged to be active on a variety of levels and to interact both locally and internationally.
The faculty is served by well qualified academic and administrative staff dedicated to excellence. Staff from the faculty is actively involved – in many cases in leadership roles – in the activities of the professional societies and statutory boards of the professions represented in the faculty. The faculty also makes a significant contribution to the in-service training of personnel in the government and private sectors through the presentation of a variety of courses through Continuing Education at the University of Pretoria.
The faculty has strong links with industry on various levels that is facilitated by Advisory Boards on departmental, school and faculty levels. We are thankful for the input of the many prominent persons from industry and other role players who serve on these boards.
In 2003 the faculty made further progress with the implementation of the student oriented and outcomes based method of course presentation. The first students following the new 3-year degree in BSc (Arch), BSc (LArch), BSc (Int) completed their degrees and had the option of gaining some experience by way of work or travel before applying for entry into the professional degrees, which will enable them to register with the respective professional councils. All the degree programmes, for which appropriate accreditation structures are available, are accredited by the relevant professions.
The faculty engaged in research over a wide spectrum of fields related to our teaching programs with the aim of making original and internationally competitive contributions that are also locally relevant. The latter is indicated by the large portion of research funding that is obtained from local industry and government initiatives linked to industrial development. Good progress has been made with the strengthening of the research culture in the faculty as indicated by the considerable increase in accredited research outputs for the year. The faculty experienced a significant increase in postgraduate student numbers during 2003 and the quest is to achieve a high throughput rate with high quality research outputs.
Initiatives launched to increase research outputs already bear fruit and publications in quality journals increased from 86 in 2001, 113 in 2002 to 138 in 2003. In addition, a substantial number of papers were presented at local and international conferences. Contract research outputs were also reported in the form of reports and where possible and applicable also reflected in publications. Contract research funding increased from R8 million in 2002 to R14 million in 2003. NRF and THRIP funding exceeded R13 million.
Collaboration agreements with a number of international institutions have been increased through mutual visits, exchange of lecturers and students, as well as joint research projects.
The faculty continuously receives guest lecturers, visitors and exchange students and further makes use of internationally renowned external examiners. Personnel are encouraged to strengthen ties with international institutions through conference attendance, and during the report year, papers were presented at a substantial number of international congresses.
Prof R F Sandenbergh
Dean
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