ACCESS Habitable Planet Programme, which has been ongoing for almost 15 years and has graduated over 1500 “Planeteers”.  The programme is centered around a series of 10-day experiential workshops held in various locations around the country; and a series of related activities including schools programmes, lecturer training, online courses and other activities.

The workshops are aimed at exposing late under-graduates and post-graduates from a variety of backgrounds in order to attract them into earth systems science careers. This is done through a peer learning approach (for content) and through experiential field trips and related activities. We target students from South African Historically Disadvantaged Universities among other institutions and research agencies and aim to increase the number of black and female researchers in this research domain. We also use the opportunity to create a fraternity among students and to teach soft-skills in order to increase the confidence and outlook of our students. The  key principle is to use optimism and hope as a means of inspiring students to take up the challenges posed in earth systems science by inspiring them with opportunities to make an impact.   

A 2023 Monitoring and Evaluation Report on the HPW programme is available here.