Savo Heleta

Dr Savo Heleta is a researcher and educator with more than ten years’ experience in higher education, academic research, curriculum development, teaching, research supervision and internationalisation in South Africa. He has worked at Nelson Mandela University and Durban University of Technology. He has also worked on post-war peacebuilding and youth leadership development projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1998-2002) and post-war capacity building and leadership development in South Sudan (2009-2013).

 

His research interests include decolonisation of knowledge, higher education internationalisation, international research collaboration, higher education policy, analysis of foreign aid flows to higher education, and rebuilding higher education after violent conflict. He has published extensively in academic journals and edited books, and has presented his research at numerous academic conferences around the world.

 

His current research focuses on the critical analysis of foreign aid flows to higher education in reference to the Sustainable Development Goals; critical assessment whether the provision of foreign aid is informed by the needs in recipient countries; and the analysis of past foreign aid flows to Palestine. In addition, much of his current research focuses on collaborations with Palestinian and other scholars on the scholasticide in Gaza and the plans for rebuilding higher education in Gaza.

 

Savo is a member of the editorial board of the journal Transformation in Higher Education; member of the academic advisory board of the Climate Action Network for International Educators (CANIE); member of the management council of the International Education Association of South Africa (IEASA); and a member of the international advisory board for the online Masters programme in Human Rights Practice at the University of Arizona, United States.

 

Savo has an undergraduate degree in history and business management from St John’s University in Minnesota, United States, and a Masters degree in conflict transformation and management and a PhD in Development Studies with the focus on post-war reconstruction and peace-building from Nelson Mandela University in South Africa. Survivor of the Bosnian war, he is the author of 'Not My Turn to Die: Memoirs of a Broken Childhood in Bosnia' (AMACOM Books, 2008). He lives in the United Arab Emirates.