At Unisa, we grasp the profound significance of higher education for freedom, democracy and nation-building. Higher education set in the direction of national, continental and international development goals can produce the thinking and ideation required for scholarship to meet Society’s needs.
As an engaged university, Unisa advocates a caring, responsive and avant-garde orientation to scholarship. This kind of scholarship is a catalyst for democracy, socio-economic and environmental change, enhanced social accord and active citizenship, while simultaneously, enriching scholarly modalities and increasing the social connectedness and responsiveness of the academy.
When scientific communities work across disciplines and together with government, business, civil society and communities of shared locus and shared interest, great things can happen. For this reason, at Unisa engaged scholars develop transformative projects that critically consider the goals and aspirations of the NDP, Agenda 2063 and the SDGs. Our engaged colleges support Unisa’s Niche Areas and devise relevant new development solutions.
We act with high intention to defuse the liberating and life-giving principles of social justice across education and development systems and contexts.Our engaged scholarship efforts are characterized by the mobilization of knowledge from diverse social/public networks into the academy; together with the reciprocal mobilization of relevant knowledge from the academy to our networks for change.
Through its partnership with the South African Higher Education Community Engagement Forum (SAHECEF), representative of all public universities and one private university, Unisa is contributing to the development of the national community engagement discourse and influencing national higher education policy.
Last modified: 2023/08/07