Universities South Africa (USAf) is excited to invite public higher education institutions to participate in our Impact Initiative to highlight and celebrate the remarkable societal impact of South Africa Universities.

Objective: The primary goal of this initiative is to illustrate the profound positive influence that South African universities have on addressing societal challenges. By sharing impactful case studies on the USAf website, we aim to inform and inspire the public, stakeholders and the global community about the valuable contributions that universities make towards creating positive change.

Guidelines: We invite your university to submit a maximum of three of your most compelling impact case studies that demonstrate how your university has successfully responded to and helped to solve some particular societal challenges. Each case study should showcase a specific initiative, project or program that has already had a significant positive impact on some sector of society. Please use the provided Guidance Note, which includes also a Template for presenting your case studies.

Using the provided Template, please limit each case study to a maximum of 1,500 words, providing a concise but comprehensive overview of the initiative and the impact achieved. Case studies can arise from research, or teaching, or engagement initiatives. Please note that your case study should do more than just describe an activity: it should provide evidence that your activities have already made a difference in society. Please submit each case study as one single pdf file, no bigger than 2 Mb.

Submission Deadline: Please submit your university’s impact case studies to USAf no later than the deadline of 15 July 2026, via email to impact@usaf.ac.za.

Review and Selection Process: A panel of experts will review the submissions based on the evaluation criteria given in the Guidance Note. Selected cases studies will be featured and credited on the USAf website www.usaf.ac.za under the tab ‘Societal Impact’, as is already done for the case studies selected in 2024 and 2025.

Enquiries: ntswalo@usaf.ac.za