Dorothy Ngila
About
Dr Dorothy Ngila is a science partnerships, research and programme management leader, with a
global footprint. She advances her career at South Africa’s National Research Foundation as a
director of knowledge and institutional networks. In this role, she leads the NRF’s engagement in
knowledge and institutional networks, prominent amongst these the Science Granting Councils
Initiative in sub-Saharan Africa and the Global Research Council. Dr Ngila has extensive experience
providing strategic advice, secretariat support, fund-raising and managing the implementation of the
mandates of academies of science and research councils, as well as positioning, building and
managing strategic bilateral, triangular and multilateral science partnerships. Dr Ngila is a seasoned
programme and research management leader. Examples of large and complex research programmes
she has co-led are the Covid-19 Africa Rapid Grant Fund (CARGF), the O.R. Tambo Africa Research
Chairs Initiative (ORTARChI), and the u’GOOD research programme on young people and relational
wellbeing in the Global South. She is interested in institutional capacity strengthening in Africa (with
a focus on scientific institutions), how scientific boundary organisations interface science and policy
(with a focus on academies of science and public funding agencies) and integrating gender and
intersectionality in science (with a focus on women). Dr Ngila serves as a Vice-Chair of the Advisory
Board of the Alliance for African Partnership, member of the Board of Chemichemi Foundation, and
on the GRC’s Executive Support Group. She has previously served as both a co-chair and member of
the GRC Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Working Group, and is a past chair of the
Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) South African National
Chapter. Dr Ngila holds a PhD (Science and Technology Studies) from Stellenbosch University in
South Africa.