A remarkable thing happened on Monday 22 April 2002 when the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), held a seminar about the ISI Web of Knowledge (www.isinet.com/emea/sa/trial) in Cape Town. They used the ISI Essential Science Indicators to identify the most highly cited researchers world-wide in 22 categories based on total citations from papers indexed from 1991 to October 31, 2001. Only 5 South African scientists were included in the lists for All Categories. These included 4 PROMEC (or ex-PROMEC) researchers: Drs Gordon Shephard, Eric Sydenham and Pieter Thiel among the top 15 most highly cited researchers in the Category Agriculture, and Prof Wally Marasas among the top 120 most highly cited researchers in each of two categories, Agriculture and Plant & Animal Sciences. The four PROMEC researchers received awards at the function and a good time was had by all.

On behalf of the SASPP, we would like to congratulate Prof. Marasas with this wonderful achievement!