UCT - UEA Newton PhD Partnership on Understanding the Climate system and Coping with Climate Change

The developing world is projected to suffer disproportionately from the effects of climate change. Many uncertainties remain in the likely conditions the world will experience, for example in local rainfall, and the effects of such changes on agriculture, fisheries, health, and industrial development. It is today's early career researchers who will be tasked with tackling these challenges in future.

To generate the skilled people necessary, we established an international PhD partnering between the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the areas of:

1. understanding the climate system, including the ocean and atmosphere, and
2. developing capacity to cope with a changing climate.

The partnership sees exchanges between PhD students working in the fields of climate science (e.g., climate modelling, ocean science, atmospheric science), climate impacts (e.g., social science, international development, human health, agriculture, fisheries), and adaptation strategies. UEA and UCT are two universities with strong expertise in these disciplines. These strong and complementary centres and academics are brought here together in a formal arrangement for the first time. The PhD researchers benefit from strong expertise in both UEA and UCT in a range of key and modern methods. They learn the skills needed to fully develop as researchers and operate in a global research environment in their field.

Our partnership includes world experts in the measurements of ocean currents, marine biogeochemistry and ecology, fisheries survey, and atmospheric trace gases, as well as experts in conducting fieldwork on climate change adaptation and on epidemiology. We also have expertise in the synthesis and analysis of global datasets such as the global temperature (CRUTEM) and global ocean CO₂ (SOCAT), and in the modelling of physical climate, biogeochemistry, and integrated assessments of impacts and adaptation options.

Project team

Leigh Cobban Manager ACDI Training & Capacity Development Portfolio	Sivuyisiwe Situngu Assistant Manager ACDI Training & Capacity Development Portfolio