On 6 August 2009 the Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, announced ten new NRF research chairs.

We are extremely proud that Prof. Ben Cousins (pictured left), Director of PLAAS, was awarded a Tier 1 research chair for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies.  Other chairs with poverty, social change, etc. as their focus include Julian May (UKZN), Haroon Bhorat (UCT), Gary Minkley (Fort Hare) and Peter Alexander (U. of Johannesburg).

As a Tier 1 chair, Prof. Cousins is awarded funding of R 2.5m per annum over 5 years.  The chair is renewable for a further 5 or 10 years thereafter.

Prof. Cousins will step down as director, but will remain at PLAAS.  He hopes to recruit 12-16 masters students, 2 PhD students and 2 post-doctorates over a 5 year period.  He admits that the student load may be fairly ambitious.  Furthermore, he will be publishing in academic journals  and publications.