Current News
The latest news for the Development Policy Research Unit. Please go to the archive for older news articles.
UPDATE - NRF Call for 2022 Bursary Applicants: The UCT Postgrad Funding Office have kindly offered to summarise the framework document for any students confused by the 2022 bursary application process...
NRF Call for 2022 Bursary Applicants: Post-graduate bursaries for South African students within the fields of poverty, inequality, and labour markets
Our latest working paper, "Can cash transfers aid labour market recovery? Evidence from South Africa’s special COVID-19 grant", authored by Prof. Haroon Bhorat and Tim Köhler, provides a quantitative, descriptive analysis on COVID-19 grant receipt as well as causal estimates of the receipt of the grant on labour market participation by adopting a quasi-experimental econometric approach.
We are inviting qualified and experienced research organisations, policy practitioners and research specialists, preferably those who have been involved in sectoral masterplan development under the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) or a related Department, to submit proposals to facilitate and develop a delivery model and toolkit for the development and implementation of masterplans.
The INSETA-UCT Research Chair is seeking applications from Honours, Masters and Doctoral students in any field whose research is of relevance and interest to South Africa’s Insurance Sector.
Deadline extended: The DPRU is seeking a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (PDRF) to grow their research expertise, generate valuable research outputs and produce peer-reviewed publications.
The Economic Research and Coordination unit of the dtic is inviting qualified and experienced research organisations, policy practitioners and research specialists to submit proposals to facilitate and develop the Cannabis Master Plan.
The INSETA-UCT Research Chair is seeking applications from Honours, Masters and Doctoral students in any field whose research is of relevance and interest to South Africa’s Insurance Sector.
The DPRU and the Insurance Sector Education and Training Authority (INSETA) are looking for suitably qualified and experienced black (i.e. African, Coloured, Indian) South Africans, to make two Junior Research Fellow appointments on either a PhD or a Master’s track, to start as soon as possible, until the end of March 2022.
Prof. Haroon Bhorat, DPRU Director, recently presented at the "Lockdown Economics: Will the Economic Recovery Plan Work?" webinar, hosted by The Brenthurst Foundation and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.
Authored by Haroon Bhorat, Morné Oosthuizen and Ben Stanwix, this new DPRU working paper emphasises that social assistance to mitigate the consequences of Covid-19 should not be viewed necessarily as a standard poverty reduction exercise, but rather as an attempt to mitigate Covid-related income shocks for the vulnerable who were most negatively affected by the pandemic.
Prof. Ravi Kanbur presented a memorable TB Davie Memorial Lecture yesterday, on ‘Economic Inequality and Academic Freedom’. Nominated to be this year's speaker by Prof. Haroon Bhorat, DPRU Director, Ravi (who is a long-time research collaborator of the Unit, and a prolific co-author too), focused on the role of economic resources in determining opportunities in academic education and research, i.e. freedom in the positive sense.