Six months into his tenure as the University of Cape Town's (UCT) deputy vice-chancellor (DVC) for Research and Internationalisation, Professor Thokozani Majozi has developed a clear picture of the university's greatest strengths - and the areas that require attention to secure its place among the world's leading research institutions.
His first months have taken him through research institutes, centres and faculties, where he has met academics and researchers whose work earned UCT its reputation as Africa's leading university. What he found is an institution with an exceptional community of scholars and a deeply embedded culture of interdisciplinary collaboration. At the same time, he believes UCT must modernise key systems, strengthen its academic pipeline and forge more strategic international partnerships if it is to have an even greater impact.
"We are already starting from a very high altitude," Professor Majozi said. "That makes my job both more challenging and more exciting because we have to think much harder about what will genuinely take UCT to another level."
For Majozi, UCT's greatest strength lies not in its rankings or accolades, but in its people.
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"I've met very serious academics at UCT," he said. "People who are truly committed to their craft. Having a critical mass of scholars like that makes my work much easier because they are already committed to making UCT the best university it can be - not just on the continent, but globally."
That commitment, he believes, explains much of UCT's research success.
"If you really want to make meaningful breakthroughs, you have to work across disciplinary lines."
Yet, arriving as an outsider has also given him a fresh perspective on the institution. Looking at UCT through new eyes has allowed him to identify practices that long-serving staff may simply have accepted as part of university life.
"I've asked myself how UCT has managed to achieve what it has achieved under the circumstances," he reflected.
UCT's culture of interdisciplinary collaboration is among the discoveries that impressed him most.
Although staff often describe the university as operating in silos, Majozi's experience has been different. During his first six months, he visited almost all of UCT's 10 University Research Committee-accredited institutes, alongside many of its 35 research centres, 39 research units and 25 South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) chairs.
What he found was researchers from different faculties working together to solve complex challenges.
"The whole world is waking up to the fact that if you really want to make meaningful breakthroughs, you have to work across disciplinary lines," he said. "That has been happening at UCT for a long time."
Rather than replacing existing structures, Majozi believes the university should build on what already works.
"In my opinion, that is at the heart of what makes UCT the university that it is," he said. "Whatever we do going forward should enhance that culture rather than disturb it."
Modernising the machinery behind research
There is one thing that surprised him, which has little to do with research itself. Instead, it concerns the systems that support it.
Majozi believes too many of UCT's administrative processes still rely on manual intervention, making it unnecessarily difficult to access information needed for strategic decision-making.
"I work very hard to get basic information that, in many other institutions, would simply be at my fingertips," he said.
He argues that the university's digital systems remain fragmented, slowing decision-making and creating unnecessary work for academics, professional staff and university leadership.
"We have a duty to integrate our systems harmoniously," he said. "I don't necessarily believe this is about spending huge amounts of money. I believe we already have the capacity. We simply need to make the systems work together much better."
One request illustrates the challenge.
Soon after arriving, Majozi asked for the number of UCT academics currently studying towards their PhDs, a figure he regards as essential for planning future academic development.
Months later, only one faculty had provided the information in a comprehensive format.
For him, this is more than an administrative inconvenience.
"If we know who those academics are, we can support them, create space for them to complete their doctorates and strengthen the university's future supervisory capacity."
Growing the next generation of scholars
Building academic capacity sits at the centre of Majozi's long-term vision.
Recent national data shows that about 62.6% of UCT academics currently hold PhDs. While that represents a substantial proportion, he believes the university should aim considerably higher.
His goal is to increase that figure beyond 70% over the next few years.
"You cannot expect to graduate significantly more PhDs if you don't increase the number of academics who are qualified to supervise them."
Rather than relying primarily on recruitment, he sees an opportunity to invest in academics already employed at UCT who are working towards doctoral qualifications.
"If they complete their PhDs, we immediately increase our supervisory capacity," he explained.
That, in turn, will enable the university to supervise more postgraduate students and produce more doctoral graduates.
At present, UCT enrols roughly 2 200 PhD candidates at any given time but graduates about 250 annually. Although last year's figure of 289 doctorates represented an encouraging increase, Majozi believes the university can do much better.
His ambition is to double the annual PhD graduations to more than 500 within four years.
Achieving that, however, depends on expanding the number of qualified supervisors.
"You cannot expect to graduate significantly more PhDs if you don't increase the number of academics who are qualified to supervise them," he said.
He also highlighted the average PhD completion time of approximately 6.3 years - more than double the minimum registration period - as another area requiring attention.
Another priority emerging from UCT's developing research strategy is strengthening the contribution of postdoctoral fellows.
The university hosts around 350 postdoctoral researchers each year and invests approximately R123 million annually in supporting them.
Majozi believes that investment can deliver even greater returns, not simply through financial value, but by ensuring postdoctoral researchers become more visible internationally through high-quality publications and research outputs.
"Our postdocs should be doing exactly what postdocs are meant to do - research," he said.
Improving research productivity, he argues, would benefit both individual researchers and the institution while generating additional research subsidy income that could help sustain future investment.
International partnerships with purpose
Leading both research and internationalisation under a single portfolio presents opportunities that Majozi is eager to explore.
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Rather than viewing internationalisation as an end in itself, he sees it as a powerful mechanism for strengthening research.
"The question I constantly ask myself is: How do we leverage internationalisation to advance our research agenda?"
His answer lies in building strategic global partnerships that provide UCT academics and students with access to world-class expertise and research infrastructure.
"Our responsibility is to create fertile ground for our established academics to stay and for young scholars to grow."
Many leading universities abroad possess facilities that are simply beyond the reach of most institutions.
"If our academics and students spend meaningful time in those institutions and gain access to that infrastructure, it strengthens our own research capacity."
This thinking is already shaping the development of new research and internationalisation strategies, both of which are expected to be finalised by the end of November before implementation begins in 2027.
Ultimately, Majozi believes UCT's future depends on one thing above all else: people.
He's enthusiastic about the internationally recognised scholars already at the university but is equally passionate about creating opportunities for the next generation.
"Our responsibility is to create fertile ground for our established academics to stay and for young scholars to grow," he said.
He wants emerging academics to see a clear career path, from junior appointments and postdoctoral fellowships through to professorships, supported by mentorship from UCT's established researchers.
"Every emerging scholar must see a future at UCT," he said. "The talent is already here. Our responsibility is to create the environment that allows that talent to flourish."
