The South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) is a human intervention by the government of South Africa, led by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the National Research Foundation (NRF). It is designed to significantly expand the scientific research base of the country in a way that is relevant to national development and in support of making South Africa an internationally competitive global knowledge economy.

The South African Research Chairs Initiative has five interrelated objectives:

• To increase the number of world class researchers in South Africa,
• To retain and/or attract back qualified research scientists to the Higher Education sector,
• To stimulate strategic research across the knowledge spectrum and thereby increase the level of excellence in research areas of national and international importance,
• To create research career pathways for highly skilled, high quality young and mid-career researchers that effectively addresses historical racial, gender and age imbalances, and
• To improve and accelerate the training of highly qualified personnel through research.