SA universities’ contribution to Sustainable Development Goals unveiled at the HE Conference 2024
During 2023, Universities South Africa (USAf) commissioned a study to map the contributions of the country’s 26 public universities to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The results reveal there is one SDG the South African higher education sector addresses more than any other – Good Health and Wellbeing (Goal 3). Out of almost 160 000 publications on SDGs over a six-year period from 2018 to 2023, this SDG featured in 44 600. The next highest one was SDG 8 on Decent Work and Economic Growth, which featured in 9 680 publications.
The SDG that South African universities address the least is Goal 1 on Ending Poverty. It was addressed in 5010 research outputs during those six years.
The USAf-commissioned report also shows it is not only the top research-intensive universities doing their bit to contribute to the 17 goals of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — a global call for action to address the world’s extreme challenges.
The University of Johannesburg (UJ), the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Rhodes University (RU) are among those taking the lead, overall.
Yet when it comes to SDG 6 on Clean Water and Sanitation, the Vaal University of Technology, the University of Venda (UNIVEN) and the Durban University of Technology feature highly in their publications per capita. “So it isn’t always the big five, which is heartwarming,” said Professor Corli Witthuhn (left), Vice-Rector: Research and Internationalisation at the University of the Free State (UFS), who led the study.
She was speaking at USAf’s 3rd Higher Education Conference, themed The Future of the University, which took place in Pretoria from 9 to 11 October. The conference, for which 346 delegates registered, was the first public reveal of the results of this research, titled South African Universities – Mapping the Sustainable Development Goals.
Professor Witthuhn was joined on stage at the CSRI International Convention Centre by two key members of her team from the UFS, whom she referred to as “my wingman and woman”, Professor Johan van Niekerk (left, below), Head of Department of Sustainable Food Systems and Development, and Ms Mariska Vermeulen (right), a lecturer in the same department.
Another key member of her team, Professor Ademola Jegede, Law Professor and interim Director of the Ismael Mahomed Centre for People and Human Rights at UNIVEN, was not present. He was the lead researcher of the UNIVEN team who qualitatively analysed the data Deputy Vice-Chancellors (DVCs) provided for the study.
Mapping the Sustainable Development Goals lists the top 10 universities that have contributed research on each SDG. It also breaks down each university’s collaboration nationally and internationally.
There was such interest in the report that at the end of Professor Witthuhn’s presentation, there was a bunfight over the 15 available printed copies of the 52-page report, now available on the USAf website.
Research timelines and aims
Professor Witthuhn explained how the study came about.
When USAf invited qualified researchers in 2023 to express their interest in the research, the UFS responded and was appointed at the end of January 2024. The project commenced the following month and ended in June.
Using primarily desktop, or secondary, research, the team drew data from the 26 public universities’ annual and research reports, websites and publications, as well as from Elsevier’s SciVal, which provides access to the research performance of over 24 000 institutions and researchers from more than 230 nations, and the European Commission’s SDG mapping tool. “We also collected science, technology and innovation case studies, an area where we could do a lot more,” said Professor Witthuhn. Using information from USAf’s steering committee, they identified sustainable partnerships about collaborations in the sector.
“Higher education contributes to sustainable development goals through outreach, through research, and through policy development,” said Professor Witthuhn.
In mapping the contribution of universities, Witthuhn and her team set out to achieve the following aims.
- Identifying strengths and opportunities in South Africa’s 26 public universities for contributing to the SDGs
- Identifying gaps not being addressed that universities might want to develop; and
- Highlighting where institutions have overlapping and complementary strengths that could be combined in partnerships to help find solutions to the country’s most urgent sustainable development challenges.
Size matters
They used per capita data when comparing the research outputs of universities. “We divided the number of publications in each specific area by the number of academics in those institutions, so that we were not unfair to universities like Rhodes University, which has a small academic cohort,” said Professor Witthuhn.
Results
The results of the report included research publications and their impact, societal impact measured through policymaking, and the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings.
The top 10 contributing universities to the SDGs are UCT, SU, Wits, University of Pretoria (UP), UJ, University of the Western Cape, RU, UKZN, Tshwane University of Technology and NMU.
Key findings include:
- UCT and UJ were the biggest contributors to SDG 1 on Poverty Eradication
- University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (UKZN) and RU were the biggest contributors to SDG 2 on Zero Hunger
- UCT and University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) were the biggest contributors to SDG 3 on Good Health and Wellbeing
- RU and Nelson Mandela University (NMU) were the biggest contributors to SDG 14 on Life Below Water; and
- RU and Stellenbosch University (SU) were the biggest contributors to SDG 15 on Life on Land.
Contribution of SARChI chairs and Centres of Excellence
Witthuhn said the National Research Foundation and its South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) showed they mostly support SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure followed by SDG3: Good Health and Wellbeing. “Here are opportunities to look at no poverty, climate action, and clean water and sanitation,” she said.
SDGs 9 and 3 are also the main focus of Centres of Excellence at universities. “I’m sure those of you who know the sector are not really surprised by that,” said Witthuhn. “Interestingly enough, there are no centers of excellence in SDGs that directly represent quality education, clean water and sanitation, gender equality, affordable and clean energy, and climate action. So I think there are a lot of opportunities to think about how we fund our sector, and how we how we can make sure that we speak to many of these SDGs.”
Publication impact
Witthuhn said USAf’s steering committee had asked the research team: “OK, so now you have done all of this stuff, but what does it mean? What is the impact of our research outputs?”
She said that yet again, the most articles published in the top 25 journal percentiles were about good health and wellbeing.
“At the University of Cape Town, 63% of those articles are in the top 25% of journals, which is fantastic. I mean, that’s really where you want to be. Interestingly enough, if you look at quality education, only 41% of those at UCT are in top 25 percentile journals.
“For SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, UNISA has 52% in the top 25 and Fort Hare, 52% in the top 25, so that gives us a sense of the impact that our work has, the quality of our research outputs.”
Annual and research reports
The goal reported on the most in annual and research reports in SDG 4: Quality Education. ”Considering that we’re higher education, perhaps that makes sense,” she said. UJ and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology addressed the most SDGs in their annual reports.
Collaborations
Professor Witthuhn said they analysed who each university collaborated with in the articles that contributed to the SDGs. “The Central University of Technology has 31% in national collaboration, 24% international, 31% institutional. UCT has 65% of its publications with international collaborators, which in terms of an international footprint is really fantastic,” she said.
What does it all mean?
The big question, she said, is: “What is the societal impact of all this desktop work that we did? What does it actually mean? And I think one of the things we were really interested in, was to see how many of our outputs are cited in policy documents nationally and internationally.
“Again, SDG 3: Good health and Wellbeing makes the biggest contribution to policies nationally and internationally. And we also see quite a high and positive contribution to policy, internationally and nationally, in SGD 5, which is gender equality.”
She said it was interesting to note that South Africa’s research on affordable and clean energy “doesn’t end up in policy documents, and that is again an opportunity for the sector”.
The report expressed concern about SDG1 on No Poverty and SDG 14 on Life Below Water needing urgent attention. “Many people in South Africa live in poverty. It is thus of utmost importance for South African universities to focus on and increase their contribution to SDG 1,” it stated in its conclusion.
THE Impact Rankings
In terms of the THE Impact Rankings from 2019 to 2024, UJ was ranked number one nationally and 36th internationally in 2024. In 2024 UP ranked 42nd and UCT 77th internationally.
Yet only 10 South African universities apply to be considered for these rankings, which show how the global higher education sector is working towards the SDGs.
The UFS study states this “makes this data incomparable”. Yet it does acknowledge theTHE ranking does showcase “strengths and opportunities regarding participating universities’ contributions towards the SDGs”. Similarly to the UFS study, the THE ranking uses data directly submitted by each university as well as datasets from Elsevier.
Gillian Anstey is a contract writer for Universities South Africa.
