CUT was selected by the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program (CADFP) to host an African Diaspora scholar from the United States to work with on a collaborative project on how to halt practical drift to failure that leads to accidents and fatalities on construction site. The project will be led by Prof. Fidelis Emuze, Head of Built Environment in the Faculty of Engineering and Prof Eric Asa a Fellow from North Dakota State University, United States.

A ‘drift into failure' is a gradual decline of safe work procedures (SWPs). The decline of SWPs is driven by workplace factors, which include safety violations on construction sites. This research aims to assess how to halt drift due to work pressures that lead to safety violations. The argument is based on the premise that such violations move construction practices incrementally towards the edge of safety boundaries.  Work pressures that mask the normalisation of safety violations that drives the drift into failure shall be addressed to curtail the loss of safety control on project sites. The results will impact construction practice and the society through reduction of harm to people on and off-site.

The Central University of Technology project is one of 74 projects that will pair African Diaspora scholars with higher education institutions and collaborators in Africa to work together on curriculum co-development, collaborative research, graduate training and mentoring activities in the coming months.

The Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program, now in its fourth year, is designed to reverse Africa’s brain drain, strengthen capacity at the host institutions, and develop long-term, mutually-beneficial collaborations between universities in Africa and the United States and Canada. It is funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in collaboration with United States International University-Africa (USIU-Africa) in Nairobi, Kenya, which coordinates the activities of the Advisory Council. A total of 471 African Diaspora Fellowships have now been awarded for scholars to travel to Africa since the program’s inception in 2013.

Fellowships match host universities with African-born scholars and cover the expenses for project visits of between 14 and 90 days, including transportation, a daily stipend, and the cost of obtaining visas and health insurance.

Host university contact information, Prof. Fidelis Emuze femuze@cut.ac.za

Institute of International Education (IIE), AfricanDiaspora@iie.org

See the full list of newly selected projects, hosts and scholars

Direct all questions related to the application process to AfricanDiaspora@iie.org

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Project leaders, from left:  Prof. Eric Asa, Fellow from North Dakota State University, United States and Prof. Fidelis Emuze, Head of Built Environment in the Faculty of Engineering.