Peter Vale is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

He was the founding Director of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS), and is Nelson Mandela Professor of Politics Emeritus, Rhodes University. He is an Honorary Professor in the Africa Earth Observatory Network (AEON) of which he was a founding member.

He is an elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (MASSAf), a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa (FRSSAf), Lid van Die Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (LAkadSA), Fellow of the World Academy for Arts and Science (FWAAS) and a Fellow of the African Academy of Science (FAAS).

Vale is the recipient of the International Medal of the University of Utrecht, and Rhodes University’s Distinguished Senior Research Award.

In 2013, he delivered the E.H. Carr Memorial Lecture at Aberystwyth University, Wales.