Page 108 - A Widening Idea of Health and Health Research - The South African Medical Research Council from Creation to COVID

Slimmer, but Not Lacking Gray Matter: The MRC, 2012–2021

The MRC’s crisp new logo, 2014, to which a pay-off line was added, ‘Advancing Life’.
The representation of a DNA strand and the human body is retained from its previous
logo (see page 58), but now in a streamlined form.

postgraduate black and women scientists were expanded – ‘the start of the research
pipeline into the MRC’, its annual report called it – funds were invested in the new
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National Health Scholars Programme specifically to produce the next generation of
medical researchers, and special ‘capacity development’ posts solely for early-career
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black and women scientists were created, while, at the more senior level, deputy-
directorships were established in several research units to cultivate a next generation
of research leaders ‘as a mechanism to facilitate transformation’, in the Board’s frank
words. Expanding the pool of scientific researchers in South Africa in these ways was,
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cumulatively, perhaps one of the MRC’s greatest contributions to scientific endeavour
in the country.
Moreover, to ensure that white men did not continue to occupy the top manage-
ment posts far into the future, succession plans to change the race and gender profile
of their incumbents were also put in place. For example, in 2017 the chief financial
officer’s contract was renewed for five years ‘on condition that a successor fitting the
required equity profile be recruited midway through the five-year term’. In the event,
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the incumbent stood down early so as to fast-track transformation.

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