Pursuing academic excellence
The academic project is at the core of the University. The shift for Wits 2033 is not in what we do, but in how we do it by placing our people at the centre, enabling a space for collaboration across disciplines, and encouraging innovative ways of approaching our curriculum and knowledge production.
The Wits 2033 Strategic Framework is informed by the University’s Teaching and Learning Plan 2020 – 2024 which identifies seven focus areas: increasing flexible and lifelong learning opportunities; enhancing academics as university teachers; strengthening institutional capacity for curriculum development and renewal; diversifying assessment methods; expanding postgraduate education; expanding innovative forms.
We commit to:
Student success
- Using evidence-based data, science, and research to identify barriers to student success
- Investing in initiatives that help students complete degrees in the minimum expected time
- Providing continuous professional development for academic and support staff
- Strengthening and integrating research into the student success framework
Graduates of the future
- Nurturing critical thought, robust reasoning, and debate based on factual foundations
- Instilling a sense of social responsibility in graduates
- Providing multidisciplinary, flexible academic environments
- Expanding academic offerings for lifelong learning opportunities
- Equipping graduates to think independently and critically
Advancing the pursuit of fundamental knowledge
- Creating environments for knowledge that will profoundly impact the world
- Pursuing potential Nobel Prize-winning research
- Translating fundamental knowledge into technological innovation
- Spawning companies that will change the world
Knowledge generation for societal advancement
- Leveraging research to address 21st-century challenges from a global South perspective
- Developing multidisciplinary research teams for global challenges
- Pursuing collaborative research (national, continental, international)
- Focus areas: social justice, climate sustainability, inclusive public health, technologies for advancement, future of economy and work
Building a pipeline
- Developing research and innovation culture in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes
- Becoming the leading postdoctoral hub on the continent
- Motivating and investing in people to be research active and innovative
- Expanding research leadership opportunities for all staff
Innovation and academic entrepreneurship
- Encouraging innovative ways to create and fund impactful research
- Translating our knowledge economy into novel, purposeful solutions
- Creating opportunities to transform research into commercial opportunities