From UCT's Research Office, this am:
Three NRF funding calls were due to open in April 2009, namely Thuthuka (TTK), Research Niche Areas (RNAs, also called IRDP) and Competitive Support for Unrated Researchers. The NRF has informed us that, due to budgetary constraints and the pending reviews of TTK and the RNAs, there will be no calls for these programmes in 2009 for funding in 2010.The call for Competitive Support for Unrated Researchers will proceed as planned, opening mid April.
Well, well, well.... So the Not Real Funding agency (which is what we folk long-associated with it, know the NRF as) has actually admitted, that really, they Don't Really Fund?? How is it that SA's premier pure scientific - pardon, that should be general - research funding body HAS NO MONEY to fund what presumably were well-thought-out initiatives, planned long ago?
Could it be - gasp! Shock! Horror! - that the rumour is true? That governmental funding and subsidy of the 2010 World Cup has so drained the national fiscus, that the NRF has been short-changed??
Or is it that yet another rearranging of the deck chairs on a ship that is sinking have drained monies from initiatives that were supposed to be core funding avenues?
Who knows, who knows....
Ah, well. The Doors had it right, if we are to relate yet another Golden Age song to a modern situation:
The Doors: Ship Of Fools Lyrics
Songwriters: Robbie Krieger, John Densmore, Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek
...
Everyone was hanging out
Hanging up and hanging down
Hanging in and holding fast
Hope our little world will last
Yeah, along came [Dr. Albert S. van Jaarsveld (Acting)]
Looking for a new a ship
Come on, people better climb on board
Come on, baby, now we're going home
Ship of fools, ship of fools...
