2018 Annual Report

In 2018, Nelson Mandela University celebrated the centenary year of the birth of our iconic namesake, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. This provided us with a significant opportunity to foreground how the University is interpreting what it means to
carry Mandela’s name, especially as it relates our institutional identity and mandate, our curriculum and scholarly endeavours, our engagement and partnerships, as well as our institutional culture and transformation agenda. The University’s positioning strategy is a critical precondition to thrive within the context of the prevailing volatile, complex challenges confronting the higher education sector nationally
and globally. Such challenges include policy uncertainty, slow economic growth, increased enrolments and growing student expectations for expanded support, rigorous accountability and regulatory requirements, and intensifying global competition for talent and funding.

Against this background, it is of paramount importance that the University continuously reflects on whether institutional strategy is fit-for-purpose. This was the focus of considerable reflection during 2018 as part of a comprehensive review of the University’s Vision 2020 strategic plan, from which six strategic priorities
emerged to guide planning and resource allocation from 2018 to 2020, namely to:
• Embrace a distinctive educational purpose and philosophy that contributes to student access and success.

• Develop and cultivate an engaged, innovative scholarship culture that generates knowledge recognised for its contribution to sustainability.
• Foster an affirming, transformative institutional culture that promotes diversity and social cohesion.
• Enhance long-term financial sustainability through responsible resource stewardship.
• Position the University as an employer of first choice by investing in talented, high-performing staff.
• Provide and sustain enabling systems and infrastructure that promote an exceptional experience for students, staff and key stakeholders.
• Concurrently, Council mandated four game-changing development trajectories for the University to ensure that it differentiates itself strategically going forward, namely:
• Building the new brand and identity of Nelson Mandela University, nationally and internationally;
• Positioning the University as the leading Ocean Sciences university in the country, and in the longer term, the African continent;
• Transforming health sciences education towards the establishment of the 10th medical school in the country; and
• Developing capacity for strategic resource mobilisation through the restructuring of the University Trust and the establishment of appropriate internal institutional capacity for fundraising.