Robert van Niekerk

Director and Professor of Social Policy

r.vanniekerk@ru.ac.za

tel: +27 (46) 603 8903

fax: +27 (46) 622 3948

Robert’s area of research and teaching interest is in the institutional history, ideologies and understandings of social policy and social change in South Africa. He also has an interest in social policy in a post-apartheid South Africa - particularly polices aimed at overcoming inequality and developing social rights of citizenship and the “good society” - and the factors which account for success and failure in policy implementation. His doctorate completed in Oxford is on the history of social policy and social citizenship and contestations over the development of inclusive, de-racialised social policies since the 1940’s. Robert, who took up an associate professorship in 2010, has been tasked with building the social policy programme with colleagues at ISER.

Robert van Niekerk