Prof Aldo Stroebel
Prof Aldo Stroebel
Prof Aldo Stroebel is the inaugural Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research, Innovation and Internationalisation, appointed on 1 July 2023. The portfolio provide strategic leadership for all aspects related to research, innovation and partnerships, and executive management of Library and Information Services and Institutional Centres and Institutes.
A recognised scholar in sustainable agriculture, Prof Stroebel was elected as a founding member of the SA Young Academy of Science (SAYAS). He is a Foreign Fellow of the Ugandan National Academy of Sciences, Senior Fellow of the Pan-African Scientific Research Council, and an Honorary Scholar at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria. He was a former Visiting Fellow at Cornell University’s Institute for African Development (IAD). More than 100 journal articles, book chapters and reports have been published (incl. two edited volumes by Cambridge Scholars and CTA), and 22 Master’s and PhD students have been supervised/ co-supervised.
He had a comprehensive and globally diverse higher education training profession: BSc- and Hons-degrees (University of Pretoria); Masters in International Agricultural Development (University of Ghent, Belgium); PhD in Sustainable Agriculture (Joint Programme between the University of the Free State and Cornell University, USA); Postdoctoral research (Wageningen University, The Netherlands). Professional training courses have been completed in Research Management in Australia, in Gender Programming in The Netherlands, Diversity Leadership in the USA, and Corporate Governance in South Africa.
He has served as South Africa’s National Contact Point for the European Research Council, and is a Board Member of the Water Research Commission. He is the immediate-past co-chairperson of the Executive Support Group of the Global Research Council, and former President of the Southern African Research and Innovation Management Association (SARIMA).
Prof Stroebel joined UMP from the National Research Foundation (NRF) where has was Executive Director Strategic Partnerships (2013-2023), with demonstrated success in developing a comprehensive suite of significant partnership and collaborative engagements for the NRF, with high levels of resource leveraging, contributing to and positioning South Africa’s National System of Innovation (NSI). Prior to the NRF, he worked at the University of the Free State (2003-2013) as Senior Lecturer; Associate Professor in the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture; Founding Director of International Affairs; and Director International Academic and Transformation Projects in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor and Rector. He was involved in the designing and implementation of numerous policy, organisational and development systems and strategies for the management and mentoring of multicultural teams, and establishing and guiding multi-sectoral partnerships and networks in support of research and innovation. During 1998-2002, he was a researcher and lecturer at the Postgraduate School of Agriculture and Rural Development, University of Pretoria, and Coordinator and Researcher of the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), a WK Kellogg Foundation-funded initiative in six countries.
Rated Researcher