Prof Cora Burnett-Louw from the University of Johannesburg (UJ) has received the prestigious Universitas 21 award for excellence in the internationalisation of higher education.

Awarded by global education body, Universitas 21, Prof Cora Burnett-Louw from the Faculty of Health Sciences, UJ was recognised for her work in sport development on Thursday,4 May 2017 at the University of Nottingham, UK.

Prof Cora Burnett-Louw has worked in the area of physical education for many years, spearheading the establishment of the first Olympic Studies Centre in Africa, one of 38 throughout the world. She is an established voice from the Global South in the field, working closely with other scholars in Africa and beyond in the use of sport for development following the United Nations declaration of Sport for Development and Peace in 2003.

Speaking on notification of the award, Prof Burnett said, “Researchers from the Global South are obliged to unearth new ways of knowing with a voice that matters in academic discourse”: a view with which members of the U21 family would concur wholeheartedly.

Her work shows the impact that academic research can have throughout the world and within the many world communities.

Professor Cora Burnett is a research professor and lectures in the sociology of sport and research methodology with specialisation in monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment. She is a National Research Foundation-rated researcher and holds two doctorates, one in Physical Education and one in Anthropology.

The U21 Awards were created in 2012 to recognise the innovative work being done in the internationalisation of higher education at Universitas 21 member universities.