The University of Johannesburg (UJ) has launched the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements Research Chair, a significant development in the evolution of public–academic partnerships. Launched on Thursday, 20 November 2025, the Research Chair will advance a comprehensive agenda focused on key focus areas. Therse are:
- Developing evidence-based solutions for sustainable human settlements
- Strengthening the interface between policy research and implementation across Gauteng.
- Building long-term research and innovation capacity, with a strong pipeline of
- postgraduate talent
- Supporting municipal learning and cultivating innovation ecosystems that drive transformative housing and settlements outcomes
Gauteng MEC for Human Settlements, Ms. Tasneem Motara, alongside the UJ Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, Professor Refilwe Phaswana-Mafuya presided over the event. Prof Phaswana-Mafuya said the launch was testament to UJ’s resolve in championing research with purpose.
“Through its Pan-African vision, UJ addresses the most pressing continental challenges, including conducting research that contributes towards dignified, sustainable human settlements for all. When UJ entered into a formal partnership with the Gauteng Development of Human Settlements, the institution recognised that Gauteng faces unprecedented pressures, informal settlements expansion, infrastructure stretched to its limits, climate change threatening resilience, and spatial inequalities persisting decades after democracy’s dawn. These challenges are bold, evidence-based innovations that emerge when government vision meets academic rigour.
Prof Phaswana-Mafua added that the GDHS Research Chair, under Professor Clinton Aigbavboa’s distinguished leadership, positions the partners at the forefront of this transformation. “Through the Sustainable Human Settlement and Construction Research Centre, we have already demonstrated our capacity to generate solutions that work. This new partnership, now formally operationalised through today’s launch, amplifies that capacity exponentially.”
The Director of the new Research Chair, Prof. Clinton Aigbavboa, outlined the Chair’s mandate, emphasising that “The Chair will serve as a strategic vehicle for research, innovation, and capacity building to support evidence-based, inclusive, and sustainable human settlements policy and practice in Gauteng.
The event, which more than 150 participants attended, featured key leaders, including several distinguished guests, policymakers, researchers and scholars. Among them was the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment (FEBE), Prof. Daniel Mashao, the Head of the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements, Ms. Puleng Gadebe-Mabaso and the Head of UJ’s Department of Construction Management and Quantity Surveying, Prof. Lerato Aghimien.
