Affiliated Institution: Energy Systems Research Group (ESRG)

The Energy Node is driven by the Energy Systems Research Group (ESRG), a UCT-based team specialising in systems modelling, policy analysis, and applied research to support energy transitions across South Africa and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. As part of Khusela Ikamva, the ESRG supports UCT’s shift toward a low-carbon future by identifying efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable energy solutions. Their open-source modelling tools combine environmental and economic analysis to inform decisions on infrastructure investment, energy efficiency, and just transition strategies, both on campus and in the country.

Key activities

• Regional coordination & TRAJECTS work: Coordinating Africa’s contribution to the TRAJECTS project as the African regional hub.
• Modelling and policy analysis: Improved energy-economic modelling under the SA-TIED project, refining the SATIM-CGE link to better reflect the role of households, transport, and sectoral constraints in South Africa’s energy transition.
• Climate policy support: Contributing to the Climate Transparency Report – an annual G20-wide assessment on climate mitigation, adaptation, and finance and supporting evidence-based policy by comparing country performance and producing in-depth national policy papers to guide more ambitious climate action.
• Campus energy innovation: Conducting campus carbon modelling to track emissions and inform sustainability planning.

Affiliated Institution: Future Water Institute

The Water Node is driven by the Future Water Institute’s vision of sustainable and resilient water futures. Future Water conducts engaged, transdisciplinary research to address South Africa’s pressing water challenges. Their mission is to advance water-sensitive approaches that meet current and future societal needs, improve water governance and build capacity across the water sector. Through collaborative, impact-driven projects, postgraduate training, public engagement, and policy-relevant insights, they work to innovate resilient water systems, promote sustainable water use, and inform technically sound and socially just water management practices.

Key activities

• Multidisciplinary Research: Exploring alternative water resources for UCT and innovative approaches like pee-cycling and developing bio-bricks from urine, and conducting research focusing on people’s perceptions and experiences of water use and governance. Investigated the feasibility of employing Internet of Things (IoT) technology as an alternative data collection method for studying the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHIE). The temperature difference is primarily due to heat absorption and release from construction materials like concrete and asphalt, as well as the removal of shaded green spaces.
• Student Engagements: Workshops, surveys, and lecture visits to promote water-sensitive behaviours and for students to share and reflect on their own perceptions and experiences of water use and sustainability. Initiatives such as the "Flush and go or flush and grow" display and the Sustainable Campus Guided Walking Tour promote water and environmental sustainability awareness across campus, encouraging students to participate in shaping a water-sensitive campus culture and behaviour.
• Capacity Building: Supporting postgraduate research (supervision and funding), hosting workshops and seminars, and engaging the broader community on water-sensitive practices. Further capacity building efforts through contributions to curriculum development on nature-based solutions through the Erasmus+ NbS4AfrRes project.
• Implementation: Demonstrating urban drainage through permeable pavements and development of a qualitative risk assessment tool to provide risk management strategies for greywater, rainwater and stormwater. The tool was tested on four buildings at UCT, i.e., Hasso Plattner, New Lecture Theatre, Tugwell and Liesbeeck residence. Applied Real Time Control (RTC) on rainwater and stormwater storages to enhance performance (see publications: “Toward a water-sensitive precinct with stormwater harvesting: a case study in South Africa” and “Assessing the benefits of real-time control to enhance rainwater harvesting at a building in Cape Town, South Africa”). Furthermore, advisory support on the UCT green precinct - the wastewater treatment and reuse facility intended for teaching, research and demonstration; and the piloting of a urine-to-fertiliser process further treating liquid urine to produce water and a liquid nitrogen concentrate.

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Affiliated Institution: Centre for Bioprocess Engineering Research (CeBER)

The Waste/Energy/Food Nexus Node, led by CeBER, UCT’s Centre for Bioprocess Engineering Research. As a recognised research centre within the Department of Chemical Engineering, CeBER plays a key role in shaping South Africa’s green and bio-based economy through transformative, interdisciplinary research and engaged scholarship. CeBER’s mission is to advance sustainable bioproducts and processes by generating relevant bioprocess engineering knowledge. Their work supports the circular economy, promotes resource efficiency, and prioritises the development of environmentally conscious and socially responsive solutions in line with the South Africa 2030 agenda.

Key activities

Multidisciplinary research: Developing nature-based bioprocesses for resource efficiency, bioremediation, and socially responsive solutions incorporating bioreactor design, metabolic modelling, and techno-economic analysis.

Microalgal innovation: Engineering algal systems for carbon capture, wastewater treatment, and the production of bioproducts like bioenergy, pigments, and nutraceuticals.

Bioproduct development: Designing sustainable processes using renewable or waste feedstocks to produce biochemicals, biopharmaceuticals, and materials aligned with South Africa’s bioeconomy needs.

Environmental remediation: Tackling mine emissions such as solid wastes and acid rock drainage through biological treatment and the wastewater biorefinery approach, linking remediation with value recovery.

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Read the news article: UCT-led project creates pipeline for sustainable food waste management system.

Affiliated Institution: The Institute for Communities and Wildlife in Africa (iCWild)

The Wildlife, Waste & Art Nexus Node explores the intertwined relationships between people, animals, waste, and landscapes. Led by and rooted in the work of The Institute for Communities and Wildlife in Africa (iCWild), this node addresses conservation conflicts and human-wildlife coexistence, while engaging with creative approaches to policy, research, and public dialogue, including through art.

Key activities

Campus Wild UCT: This five-year project includes temporary and more permanent student and staff installations, exhibitions, interventions, policy papers and contextual research. Given the proximity of the campus to the Table Mountain National Park, various projects draw attention to multispecies entanglements within that space and the responsibilities of sharing the campus with its other faunal and floral occupants. Specifically, it looks at how individual actions impact that fragile system and how our negative habitual behaviour may be changed by close and slow attention to our surroundings.

Human-wildlife conflict research: Research in iCWild covers field-based and interdisciplinary research on conservation conflicts, including leopard and baboon interactions in urban and agricultural landscapes, predator-prey dynamics in rewilded areas, and carnivore ecology in Namibian conservancies, to inform coexistence strategies. Through Khusela Ikamva, the focus has been on documenting wildlife at UCT and resolving conservation conflicts over feral cats and the threat they potentially pose to small wildlife.

Stakeholder engagement: iCWild’s engagement includes landowners, reserve managers, local communities, and municipalities through collaborative projects that map mammal distributions, assess conflict risks, and co-create management strategies in protected areas, eco-estates, and informal settlements. Stakeholder engagement through Khusela Ikamva has focused on UCT (over cats) and SANParks (over honey badgers and Sambar deer).

Policy influence and collaboration: iCWild has contributed to a range of local policy initiatives, including conflict between farmers and predators and a partnership with the urban caracal project.

Transdisciplinary methods: Combining spatial ecology, field observations, and socio-political analysis to understand the ecological, historical and cultural contexts of wildlife conflict in diverse South African landscapes.

Creative collaboration: Partnering with artists, educators, and science communicators to translate research into engaging public content and inspire coexistent futures through creative media.

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Affiliated Institution: African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI)

Hosted by the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI), the Community of Practice and Social Responsiveness Node focuses on strengthening the interface between climate research, community engagement, and just transitions. Drawing on ACDI’s cross-disciplinary expertise and pan-African partnerships, this node supports inclusive knowledge co-production, socially responsive adaptation strategies, and the development of pathways that centre justice, equity, and sustainability.

Key activities

Context-driven, collaborative research: Advancing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research that improves human development outcomes in the face of climate change, with a strong geographic focus on South Africa and broader partnerships across Africa, and with South-South and South-North networks.

Societal relevance and responsiveness: Engaging with stakeholders to meet immediate evidence needs while also posing new questions that can challenge assumptions, shift agendas, and reframe climate and development challenges in more inclusive and transformative ways.

Integrative knowledge production and education: Addressing complex climate-development challenges by fostering diverse viewpoints and knowledge systems across environmental and social sciences; through research and educational programmes for students.

Research hubs and learning platforms: Coordinating transdisciplinary learning spaces such as the Climate Risk Lab, which investigates socio-environmental vulnerabilities; ASCEND, which convenes researchers and practitioners to integrate data and accelerate solutions; and the PiNC Lab, which explores nature-based, people-centred approaches to adaptation and mitigation.

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