The next stage in the evolution of universities has been the ‘entrepreneurial university’, with universities partaking in the creation of a business future, and issues such as venture creation, incubation, and risk management becoming important.

The fourth stage, in which some are already participating, but which for many remains a ‘future stage’, is the ‘knowledge platform university’. This type of university sees its responsibility to build the knowledge markets and platforms of the knowledge society. And so the university and parts of the university form partnerships to establish research consortia and research platforms, industry clusters and platforms, and creative commons and open-source platforms.

This is an environment where the university and business are increasingly overlapping. It is a challenging future, but one which we will have to enter.

To succeed in such a future, we need to be excellent. But what is excellence? It is a continually moving target, but one which speaks of being unusually good or superior, and surpassing ordinary standards. And, when it comes to research, we cannot remove excellence from impact. The full scope of our efforts lies in the notion that excellent research can create an improved quality of life and a better world.

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E: MansoorMAK@ufs.ac.za  

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