A Look at GSM’s Partnership with The University of Limpopo and Ivanhoe Mines

Five years ago, the Goodman School of Mines partnered with Ivanhoe Mines and The University of Limpopo located in South Africa. The collaboration was initiated by Robert Friedland, Executive, Co-Chairman of Ivanhoe Mines and a member of the Goodman School of Mines advisory board.

 

The collaboration has been a massive success with postgraduate geology students and lecturers from the University of Limpopo attending Laurentian while Laurentian students went to South Africa to visit Ivanhoe’s Platreef Project and the University of Limpopo for internships, to conduct research and to share knowledge.

 

The University of Limpopo was formed as a result of the merger between the former Medical University of Southern Africa (MEDUNSA) and the University of the North. The university is located in Mankweng, mid-way between Polokwane and Magoebaskloof, in Limpopo Province. It comprises four faculties, the Faculty of Health Sciences, Humanities, Science and Agriculture, and Management and Law. The Geology and Mining Department is now located within the School of Physical and Mineral Sciences in the Faculty of Science and Agriculture.

 

Laurentian University was founded in 1960 in Sudbury, Ontario. The City of Greater Sudbury is a vibrant northern city that has become an important centre for global and domestic businesses, mining and mining services, film and television production, health sciences and post-secondary education. Laurentian with its federated partners and campus in Sudbury, offers a wide array of choices for undergraduate, Master’s and doctoral programs in fields such as Management, Health Sciences, Mining Engineering and the Environment. Laurentian’s location brings unique opportunities in the fields of Natural Resource Engineering, Mineral Exploration, Mining, Environment, Health and Cultural, Social and Economic Sciences. The university’s research centres include the Vale Living with Lakes Environmental Research Facility, Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation, Mining Innovation Rehabilitation and Applied Research Corporation, Mineral Exploration Research Centre, Centre for Research in Occupational Safety and Health, and the world-famous underground Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. The Goodman School of Mines was established in 2013 to support students in meeting the challenges of 21st century mining activity and is one of the few mining schools that promotes a holistic approach to mining education.

 

Partnering for sustainable development in higher education for the extractive industry

 

Exploration success has driven value-creation at Ivanhoe Mines. In testing new concepts and generating exploration models, exceptional geological talent is supported by management that encourages risk taking and passion. In a world rapidly transforming through technological innovation, future success will rely on talent, more than capital.

 

In recognition of this five years ago, we at Ivanhoe Mines partnered with the University of Limpopo in South Africa and Laurentian University in Canada, specifically the Goodman School of Mines. The partnership was a result of a suggested collaboration initiated by the Executive Co-Chairman of Ivanhoe Mines, Robert Friedland, a member of the Goodman School of Mines Advisory Board. This collaboration sought to improve the University of Limpopo’s academic standards through sending postgraduate Geology students and lecturers to Laurentian University, and to send students and lecturers to visit the Platreef Project and the University of Limpopo for internships, to conduct research work or to share knowledge. The support for the University of Limpopo also included the provision of equipment to the School of Physical and Mineral Sciences, with the ultimate goal of establishing Geology as a university department that can serve as a centre of excellence in Geoscience in the Limpopo Province. This goal was achieved when the University of Limpopo launched the Department of Geology and Mining at the University of Limpopo in September 2018.

 

The students participating in this collaboration are recruited from the local pool of current and previous students at the University of Limpopo, and was expanded to include employees of Ivanhoe Mines. Jan Mapeka (Geologist) was selected as a candidate PhD student, and George Gilchrist (Vice President, Resources) and David Edwards (Geology Manager) enrolled for part-time MSc degrees.

 

Most recently, one of the beneficiaries of the program, Sharlotte Mkhonto, was congratulated by the Staff, Faculty and Students of Harquail School of Earth Sciences for successfully defending her MSc thesis (https://hes.laurentian.ca/news-standard/sharlotte-mkhonto-successful-msc-thesis-defence). Sharlotte’s MSc project was titled “The use of sulfide mineral chemistry to understand PGE-mineralization processes in the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex, South Africa”, under the academic supervision of Dr Pedro Jugo, Dr Danie Grobler and Matthew Leybourne.

 

Sixteen students have participated in the program to date, with ten students scheduled to complete their studies by August this year. All of the University of Limpopo students are performing well academically and have adjusted well to their surroundings, participating in the numerous sports and recreational opportunities that are a hallmark of the Sudbury area. Two students have truly excelled and their academic performance requires a special mention, Michael Langa and Fransica Maepa. As a result of Michael and Fransica’s very strong academic achievements, both students have been recommended and upgraded from their two-year MSc programs to four-year PhDs, a reward that is granted to only the very best students.

 

Canadian students have also benefited from financial and in-kind support from our scholarship, industrial and educational partners. A number of our undergraduates have taken up internships at Ivanhoe’s Ivanplats Project site, University of Limpopo’s Geology Department, where they have taught several undergraduate-level courses and the university’s Life Science Centre where they helped to build exhibits and have engaged in community outreach activities. The tripartite collaboration is funded by Ivanhoe Mines, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Scholarship, and the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship from the Goodman School of Mines. The total program spend to date amounts to US$2.25 million. Ivanhoe believes that The Sustainable Development Agenda can be achieved through such partnerships (SDG 17) and will continue to seek and build such partnerships.