Prof Mabel Erasmus, who previously oversaw the Service-Learning portfolio at the UFS, played a key role in securing the research grant.

Community engagement has long been at the heart of the University of the Free State’s mission; important moments in our history continue to shape the work we do today. One such milestone occurred in 2011, when the UFS received a R1,1 million research grant from the National Research Foundation (NRF) to study community engagement with a focus on non-profit organisations (NPOs).

This initiative – part of the NRF’s first call for proposals in this area – aimed to support and build collaborative, knowledge-based partnerships between higher education institutions and NPOs. It laid the foundation for the UFS’ continued commitment to using engaged scholarship to benefit communities, while strengthening academic research and learning.

An important scholarly outcome of this initiative was the publication of the book Knowledge as Enablement: Engagement between Higher Education and the Third Sector in South Africa, edited by M Erasmus and R Albertyn (2014). This publication remains a key resource in understanding the transformative potential of partnerships between universities and the third sector.