LEADING SOUTH African research sponsors have honoured Rhodes University for its excellence in ICT (Information & Communication Technology). The university has been named the top performing research group funded under the Centres of Excellence (CoE) in ICT programme. Twenty-two research groups based at University and Technikon departments of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering throughout South Africa are funded under the programme. In making the award on behalf of industry partners of the programme, Reuben September, Chief Technology Office of Telkom South Africa, indicated that the award was based on an overall evaluation of research conducted within the group. The criteria included: postgraduate output, innovation, impact on the sponsoring industries, management of the project, and contributions to the aims of the CoE programme nationally. “Rhodes University has exceed our expectations in all of these areas”, September added. The Centres of Excellence in ICT programme was established in 1997 by Telkom SA in association with the fellow sponsoring industries of Alcatel, ATC, Comparex, Ericsson, Grintek Telecom, Letlapa Mobile Solutions, Marpless, Marconi, and Siemens. Additional research funding is made available by the South African Department of Trade and Industry though the National Research Foundation. This is the first time that an award of this kind has been made. Research at Rhodes University includes the communication needs of interactive multimedia applications, delivery across heterogeneous networks, distributed computation for supporting integrated applications, and the requirements of the specific application areas of telecommunications, education, electronic commerce, entertainment, and virtual reality. The project efforts of the CoE are intended to deliver high quality manpower, specific research, and prototype software products of interest to the industry partners.