Minimum Requirements:
A Doctoral degree (PhD) in Computer Science, Information Systems or equivalent,
Appointment at Full Professor level (or demonstrable eligibility for appointment at Full Professor level in line with DUT academic criteria)
At least 10 years' post-PhD academic/research experience, including a sustained record of peer-reviewed outputs
Demonstrated research leadership at senior academic level, with evidence of leading projects/teams and supervising postgraduate research
Ideal:
NRF rating and/or equivalent recognised research standing
Evidence of international research leadership (e.g., invited keynotes, editorial boards, international grants/consortia)
Experience in institute or centre leadership, including governance, operational oversight, budget/resource management, and stakeholder engagement
Experience leading multi-partner funded programmes
Key Responsibilities:
Provide strategic and operational leadership to the Institute of System Science;
Set and maintain the institute strategy and thematic research agenda aligned to DUT priorities;
oversee a coherent and high-quality research portfolio in system science, including quality assurance, delivery discipline, and risk control;
Build and manage a sustainable funding pipeline and partnership strategy to support institute growth;
Lead and develop institute staff and researchers, including performance management, mentorship, and postgraduate supervision support;
Oversee institute operations, budgets, infrastructure planning, procurement, and administrative systems;
Drive publications, postgraduate completions, innovation outputs, knowledge translation, and measurable societal, economic, and policy impact; and
Ensure ethical and compliant research practice, structured reporting, sound data governance, and audit readiness.
Establish and monitor a performance framework (annual priorities, outputs, funding targets and review cadence)
Institutionalise portfolio governance and stage gates (intake, prioritisation, approvals, and stop or continue decisions) to ensure disciplined selection and sequencing of research programmes across the institute
Maintain formal role separation between institute accountability and programme intellectual leadership to prevent duplication, ensuring programme leadership sits with Research Associates and programme leads while the Director retains institute performance accountability
Establish institute-wide quality assurance architecture (minimum standards, internal peer review checkpoints, and documentation norms) and require programme leaders to evidence compliance without the Director assuming methodological leadership
Oversee portfolio-level risk, dependency, and capacity management, ensuring that resourcing, ethics readiness, and delivery constraints are resolved through governance interventions
Commission periodic independent or peer portfolio reviews (quality, relevance, delivery assurance) and ensure corrective actions are implemented and tracked
Negotiate and manage partner and funder obligations across the project lifecycle, including deliverables and reporting
Own the institute-level partnership architecture and reputational risk posture (partner selection criteria, escalation rules, and contract governance), ensuring programme collaborations remain aligned to institute strategy
Ensure all partnership and funding agreements include fit-for-purpose governance, IP, data, ethics, reporting and exit provisions aligned to DUT policy, with exceptions formally approved
Drive diversification of income streams (grants, contracts, commissioned research, philanthropy) with annual targets and pipeline accountability across programme leads
Build an enabling research culture that supports collaboration, accountability and high performance.
Promote and support IP protection, commercialisation and technology transfer where relevant.
Oversee ethics approvals, amendments, data management and recordkeeping to ensure audit readiness
Provide structured performance reporting to the DVC: RIE, governance structures and funders and implement corrective actions from reviews
Establish institute compliance controls (ethics workflow, data governance standards, recordkeeping protocols, and corrective action tracking) and ensure consistent application across programmes
Lead responses to audits, investigations and non-compliance issues, ensuring remediation actions are implemented, monitored and embedded into institute controls