Professor Darren Lortan is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the Durban University of Technology, where he has since 1995 held several leadership positions (including Executive Dean,  Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic and Acting Senir Director: Engagement). Apart from Mathematics he has a keen interest in Community Engagement (CE). His involvement with CE began in 1997 through a project which marketed STEM professions to high school students. The project extended to other areas in the city of Durban, with significant support engendered through a formal collaboration with Ikamva Youth, an NGO focussing on youth development and educational support. 

He has served as a Board member of the Sekusile, a Community Adult Basic Education Centre and the Jirah Academy, a Technical and Vocational, Education and Training (TVET) College. The primary focus of both of these organisations is the provision of post-school training and local community skills development. As his management duties at the Durban University of Technology increased in various capacities, his role in these organisations became more advisory in nature.  

He has served on the Board of the South African Higher Education Community Engagement Forum (SAHECEF), a group of community engagement directors/managers from universities across South Africa. During his term as Chair/President of SAHECEF, his roles included training and networking at a national level, advocacy with government and not-for-profit organisations. One of its foremost advocacy partnerships has been with the National Research Foundation (NRF). The establishment of a dedicated funding instrument for the development of Community Engagement as a knowledge field is the centre piece of this partnership.

Professor Lortan played a pivotal role in the establishment of the DUT Centre for Social Entrepreneurship (CSE) which provides training to social enterprises, cooperatives, and small community-based businesses. The Centre’s networks with the local municipality and local communities are available to all aspirant social entrepreneurs. The CSE continues to foreground social entrepreneurship as a community engagement activity.

Under his leadership, DUT has joined the Knowledge for Change Consortium (K4C) as a Local Training Hub. At the heart of this partnership is the development of the next generation of Community Based Participatory Researchers, drawn from community members and engaged students. 

Professor Lortan was also a co-investigator in a National Research Foundation funded Community Engagement Grant (2015-2017): Towards a Conceptual Theoretical and Philosophical Framework for Community Engagement in South Africa and the Global South, and the principal investigator of the SAQA – DUT Articulation Research Partnership (2015-2020), a project that explored the factors that inhibit or enable articulation within the post school education and training sector in South Africa. In July 2018 he was elected to the Board of the International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement. In addition to his duties as the Head of Department of Mathematics, he is the project coordinator of the Unfurling Post-School Education and Training (UPSET Project), which in March 2021, was awarded a University Capacity Development Programme grant to enable implementation of articulation between TVET Colleges and Higher Education Institutions in South Africa.

In summary, he is a teacher and an activist interested in sustaining an interest in education at the grass roots level.