HSRC Press Editorial Board

Opening access to quality social science in Africa

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HSRC Press :: HSRC Press Editorial Board

HSRC Press Editorial Board

An essential ingredient to a fully-fledged academic press is its Editorial Board. How else could an academic press assure academic quality without a committee or Board that certifies, through the international publishing practice of peer review, the scholarly quality of the books published?

Signalling a new and dynamic stage in the life of the HSRC Press, the first Editorial Board, headed up by Professor John Daniel, was constituted in May 2004, comprising of ten members with different but complementing skills.

Professor Dan Ncayiyana

In mid-2006, the second generation of the Editorial Board assumed their duties. Professor Dan Ncayiyana, whose academic and professional career has spanned three continents – Africa, Europe, and North America, heads this new Board up. He attended university in South Africa, but received his medical degree from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands after fleeing arrest for political activities in South Africa in 1963. New York University-trained in obstetrics and gynaecology; Prof Dan is a former editor of the South African Medical Journal, a fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and Deputy Chancellor and Honorary Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Cape Town.

The Editorial Board is made up of three HSRC staff members, designated by the Executive Directors of the HSRC; a member of the ministerially-appointed HSRC Council; three external members from the academic community; the Publishing Director of the HSRC Press, and the Commissioning Editor, Roshan Cader.

The current members are:

Dr Zimitri Erasmus

Dr Zimitri Erasmus is a senior lecturer in Sociology at the University of Cape Town, where she teaches in the fields of ‘race’, gender and social identities at both under- and postgraduate levels. Zimitri received her PhD in development and cultural change at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Her research interests include the deployment of identities in contexts of social transformation, managing organisational change and strategies for anti-racist practice. She published in State on the Nation: South Africa 2004/2005 on race and identity in South Africa.

Mr Enver Motala

Mr Enver Motala has been ministerially appointed by the HSRC Council to serve as a member on the HSRC Press's Editorial Board. Enver Motala holds an MPhil from the University of Warwick, UK. He is an Independent Consultant for institutions such as W.K. Kellogg Foundation, CSIR, Council on Higher Education, Higher Education South Africa, the Centre for Education Policy Development, the Nelson Mandela Foundation, NUFFIC and the Department of Trade and Industry. His interests relate largely to the critique, analysis and development of education and training policies in the context of South Africa’s transition to democracy. He has worked in the fields of adult basic, school-based, further and higher education and on issues concerning the interface between higher education and labour markets in particular. His expertise lies in policy development, tertiary education and law.

Dr Laetitia Rispel

Dr Laetitia Rispel former executive director at the Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health research programme of the HSRC is now adjunct professor at the Centre for Health Policy, School of Public Health at the University of Witswatersrand. She has an undergraduate health science degree from the University of Cape Town, an honours degree in epidemiology and statistics from the University of Stellenbosch, and completed an MA in community health and a PhD in health systems at the University of the Witwatersrand. Before joining the HSRC in March 2006, Dr Rispel was the head of the Gauteng Health Department. She has extensive academic and research experience, and her research interests include HIV/AIDS, health systems, public health, and gender. In 2003, Laetitia was the health category winner of the South African Shoprite/Checkers/SABC2 woman of the year award, in recognition of her health leadership and activism. In 2007, she was listed as one of the top 25 influential leaders in the health sector by the Institute of Health Care Management in South Africa.

Dr Glenda Kruss

Dr Glenda Kruss is a chief research specialist in the Education, Science and Skills Development research programme at the HSRC. She was previously associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of the Western Cape. She obtained a DPhil from the University of Ulster at Jordanstown, Northern Ireland in 1992. Dr Kruss is an experienced researcher, who has led projects and published widely in a range of educational fields. Her research over the past five years at the HSRC has focused on higher education, exploring the nature of private provision, the issue of responsiveness to economic and social needs, and the contribution to human resources development strategies. This new research path led to a focus on higher education in relation to the national science and technology system, research and innovation policy, and national and regional development, with a specific focus on higher education-industry linkages. Her latest publication,Opportunities and Challenges for Teacher Education Curriculum in South Africa, delves into the radical changes in the teacher education curriculum and the impact thereof on teacher development in post-apartheid South Africa.

Professor Arvin Bhana

Professor Arvin Bhana is the deputy executive director of the Child, Youth, Family and Social Development research programme at the HSRC. He obtained an MA degree in psychology from the University of Durban-Westville (now University of KwaZulu-Natal) and holds a PhD in Clinical and Community Psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in the United States. He is a registered clinical psychologist with the Health Professions Council of South Africa, and an adjunct associate professor in the School of Psychology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His areas of research interest include youth risk and resilience, adolescent risk-taking behaviour (including HIV/AIDS), substance abuse and other youth-related problem areas, fatherhood and protection/care of children, mental health. Professor Bhana has published extensively in a variety of academic publications. His recent publications focus on alcohol and drug abuse trends, including the role of gender in risk-taking behaviour, family protective factors in reducing risk for children and youth at risk and mental health policy issues in developing countries.

Professor Geoffrey Setswe

Professor Geoffrey Setswe is a chief research specialist in the Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health research programme at the HSRC. He holds a BA Cur from the University of South Africa, honours BCur from the University of Limpopo, a Master of Public Health from Temple University in Philadelphia, USA, and qualified as a Doctor of Public Health from the University of Limpopo. Prior to joining the HSRC in 2006, he was professor and head of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the National School of Public Health, University of Limpopo, and the founding director of the AIDS Research Institute at Wits University, where he coordinated AIDS research. He also worked for 12 years in the occupational health services of the Impala Platinum Mines in Rustenburg. Professor Setswe's has published in the field of HIV/AIDS. His most recent work, published in Development Update, investigated the research-policy-implementation gap in HIV/AIDS.

With editorial experience reflecting the diversity of the social sciences, these specialists work together to assist the HSRC Press to further develop its reputation as a scholarly publisher of academic excellence. The role of the HSRC Press's Editorial Board thus includes receiving and considering reports from external reviewers on all potential HSRC Press publications and making recommendations on books being considered for publication under the HSRC Press imprint.

THE HSRC PRESS EDITORIAL REVIEW PROCESS

The Publishing Director evaluates all manuscripts in terms of the HSRC Press mandate, that is: Is it a manuscript that is of significance to social science, research-based and does it fall within the HSRC's areas of research?

If the manuscript meets these criteria, it will be sent to at least two, but occasionally three, experts in the field for their review and comment.

This peer review is critical to publishing scholarly work – it allows other experts in the field to judge the worthiness of a project.

In evaluating the complete manuscripts, reviewers are asked to include the following in their considerations:

The soundness of the social science scholarship;
The importance of the subject-matter and the originality of the approach;
The strength of the argument;
The clarity of organisation and the quality of the writing;
Relevance to the mandate of the HSRC Press

The review is an independent evaluation on a double-blind basis – that is, anonymous author-anonymous reader.

The readers offer recommendations on whether to publish a manuscript and what changes the author might need to make in order to produce the very best manuscript on their topic.

All reviewers' reports go to the quarterly meeting of the Press's cross-disciplinary Editorial Board, which may recommend publication unconditionally, approve with suggestions for further development, or recommend that the Press decline the offer to publish the book.

The Director takes these recommendations into account, along with a range of other factors, before making a final decision of whether to publish.

Reviewers are paid an honorarium per manuscript, and where an HSRC staff member undertakes the peer-review evaluation, this honorarium is paid to the evaluator’s research unit.

Rest assured, there is no preferential treatment! Should a Board member have submitted a full manuscript, or chapter, for publication, that member will recuse him/herself from any discussion of, or recommendation on, the manuscript in question.

More information on how to publish with the HSRC Press.

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