The Research Project on the Histories of Universities in South Africa (RPHUSA) has three interrelated research goals:
- To produce a rigorously researched, well-written, peer-reviewed, scholarly book that analyses the purposes, roles and functions of universities between 1829 and today.
- To promote, support and to undertake, ideally in partnership with various universities, rigorous, critical, per-reviewed histories of individual, and especially historically black, universities in South Africa, as well as different groupings of universities (historically white, historically black, traditional universities, universities of technology, comprehensive universities) and
- To stimulate research on historical aspects of key issues related to universities – such as taken for granted core concepts, domains such as research, teaching and learning, community engagement, the origins and development of disciplines and fields, the academic development movement and student activism.
Beyond its research goals, the RPHUSA has other complementary goals. These are
- To publish the results of the research in the form of peer-reviewed books, book chapters and articles.
- To promote scholarly engagement on questions of concern to the research project through seminars, workshops and conferences, and
- To contribute to redressing the current social inequalities in the composition of the academy and knowledge creation through cultivating high quality scholars and researchers from historically disadvantaged social backgrounds by involving early career scholars, post-doctoral fellows and doctoral and masters students in the research project.
The coordinator of the RPHUSA is Prof Saleem Badat, Research Professor in the Department of History, University of the Free State. Prof Badat has extensive knowledge of universities and considerable research experience. He is the author of four books and some 60 book chapters and research articles. He is supported by a National Working Group of senior and promising early career scholars.