Prof. Nelius Boshoff and Dr. Susanne Koch contributed an invited talk to an international conference (see the conference report here) marking the 30th anniversary of Stellenbosch University’s Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST). Taking place from 17-20 March 2025, the event provided an opportunity to share findings from the various analyses conducted by the In-Forest team and to discuss project plans for the final year. 

The CREST30 Conference brought together science scholars from across the globe as well as policy actors and science funders to celebrate the centre’s achievements and discuss cutting-edge research in science studies. CREST was established on 1 January 1995 by Professor Johann Mouton as an interdisciplinary research centre of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University. Over time it has grown to become the largest academic department in the fields of science, technology and evaluation studies in South Africa, making significant contributions to science policy debates within the country and across the African continent. 

The conference programme covered talks on the globalization of science, equity and inclusion in scientific careers and communities, methodological advances in bibliometrics, shifts in science and innovation policy, and research evaluation reforms. In a session on Inequalities in Science, Boshoff and Koch jointly presented In-Forest results, ranging from global patterns in publishing revealed by bibliometric analyses to gendered struggles uncovered by ethnographic research. 

The conference also saw the launch of the African Science, Technology and Innovation Leaders’ (ASTIL) Forum – an initiative to strengthen Africa’s voice in global science. The six founding organisations represent some of the continent’s most influential bodies in the field: the African Academy of Sciences, Network of African Science Academies, Association of African Universities, African Research Universities Alliance, Science for Africa Foundation, and the Science Granting Councils Initiative, represented by the National Research Foundation of South Africa.

Following the conference, the In-Forest team held a hybrid workshop hosted by CREST to discuss and plan activities for the project’s final year, such as submissions to the up-coming STI-ENID Conference in Bristol, envisaged journal publications and a final results’ workshop at the end of 2025.