With the objective of promoting the development of Cereal Science and Technology in South Africa, CST-SA proudly announces the CST-SA Student Awards. These awards are to be made subject to availability of funds.

MSc and PhD Postgraduate Research Student Awards

A maximum of two Postgraduate Research Student Awards of R20 000 each will be awarded to individual students undertaking a research project in cereal science and technology or a related field at the MSc or PhD level. In addition to the monetary award, the awardees will receive an award certificate. The award is available to all postgraduate students at all Universities or Universities of Technology. The student must be registered at the university and both the student and his/her supervisor must be members of CST-SA at the time of application. The awards are to be used to help support the awardees’ attendance of a national or international conference on cereal science and technology, or related subject within 12 months of receipt of the award. The student has to present a poster or give an oral presentation at the conference.

Monetary payment for the award will be made after receipt of proof of acceptance of the Abstract of the poster or oral presentation to be given at the conference. As a condition of the awards, the awardees will be required to submit a two-page science and technology report on the conference that was attended, plus the programme and book of abstracts from the conference within one calendar month of the end of the conference.

An application detailing: 1) the applicant’s curriculum vitae; 2) a 500 word abstract of the research that will be presented at the conference; and 3) a motivation from the applicant of why he/she should receive the award, should be submitted to the CST-SA Awards Committee by the specified closing date. The research project must have been approved by the respective department and the application must be signed by the applicant as well as the project supervisor. The application should be accompanied by certified copies of the applicant’s previous university degrees and proof of registration for his/her current study. All submitted documents should be compiled in a single pdf file using the applicant’s surname and initials as the filename. For example, for an applicant known as Jack Errol Smith, the name of the file should be “Smith JE.pdf”.

BTech Student Awards

In any particular year in which student awards are to be given, calls for applications will be made at least a month in advance of the closing date. Calls will be made preferably early in the year (January) with the closing date for applications set to end of February and outcome of the evaluation process and feedback to be expected by mid-March. Successful applicants will be informed in writing on or before the specified feedback date.  Unsuccessful applicants will not be informed. The awardees will then be requested for further information in order to facilitate the receipt of their awards.  Applications should be sent electronically to the Chair of the CST-SA Awards Committee.  More specific details will be given in the call for applications.

General Information

The CST-SA Awards Committee comprises a panel of individuals who are well versed in postgraduate education and/or research and development in the field of cereal science and technology. Decisions on the awardees for the Student Awards are the sole prerogative of the Committee and may not be overruled. The decisions are final and no correspondence can be entered into.

Previous Awardees and Prize Winners

2014 Student award winners

Only one student award was offered in 2014. The recipient of the student award of R20 000 was Mrs Anina Guelpa from the Department of Food Science, Stellenbosch University. The award is to be used to support the attendance of a national or international conference on cereal science and technology. Anina is a third year PhD (Food Science) student under the supervision of Prof Marena Manley. There was not a 2014 recipient of the BTech student award as no applications were received.