On behalf of the plant pathology community in South Africa, the SASPP council would like to congratulate Prof. Bernard Slippers, director of the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) at the University of Pretoria, who was awarded the 2020 prestigious Havenga Prize for Natural Sciences by the South African Academy for Arts and Science. The Havenga Prize, established in 1945, is awarded annually to recognise significant and original research in the natural sciences or related technical fields.