A second P-rating for Computer Science

Dr Jesse Heyninck has been awarded the prestigious P-rating by the National Research Foundation (NRF). He is the second member of the Department of Computer Science to receive this recognition within a year.

Heyninck is an Honorary Research Associate whose main area of research is knowledge representation, a subfield of artificial intelligence that strives to model knowledge and reasoning in a way that is understandable both to humans and computers. This enables AI-systems to be built that are transparent and explainable, and thus have higher chances of being safe and verifiable. He has made contributions to various topics in knowledge representation, including formal argumentation, non-monotonic reasoning, logic programming, and approximation fixpoint theory. Heyninck is part of the Artificial Intelligence Research Unit (AIRU).

Dr Jan Buys, a Senior Lecturer, specialising in natural language processing (NLP) and machine-learning (ML), was awarded the rating in 2024. This recognition was a testament to his outstanding contributions to the field of computer science and the global recognition of his research. Read more about his award here.

The NRF rating system was established as part of the foundation's mission to establish a globally competitive science system in South Africa. It is a crucial tool for evaluating the quality of researchers in comparison to their international counterparts. NRF ratings are given to researchers based on the impact of their recent research outputs. The NRF P-rating is reserved for individuals are are leaders and pioneers in their areas of expertise. The rating also provides an attestation of a researcher’s potential to shape the future of their field and mentor the next generation of scholars.