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NWU value chain
Value creation through adapting, exploring, expanding and evolving
Our 2020 value-creation story was about empowering people to discover their strengths and harness their skills to thrive amidst the new normal brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2020, it was about setting the example for our stakeholders; taking them along on a challenging but exciting journey, we co-created value with them by adapting, exploring , expanding and evolving with us.
In other words: we invested in them because we believed in their potential (our input), we created value for them by exploring new possibilities and expanding our vision so that they could continue to grow and flourish (our activities), enabling them to evolve into critical thinkers (our output) and eventually enter the labour market and society as value creators themselves (our outcome).
Throughout our value chain, we access, use and transform our capitals. For instance, as part of our input, we use our sources of income (financial capital), our skilled staff members (human capital), buildings and equipment (manufactured capital) and our academic programmes (intellectual capital) to create value for our students (human capital). Faced with the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, however, we had to explore new ways of using these resources to save the academic year.
We also had to expand our vision and embrace exciting new possibilities in executing our daily activities. For instance, we had to find novel ways – mostly through online activities – to move forward with our community engagement initiatives. As a result, we continued to build and maintain good relationships with with people and organisations in our environment, thereby increasing our social and relationship capital.
In 2020 we applied much of our research results (intellectual capital and part of our output) to find solutions to problems posed by the pandemic, thereby changing – and often saving – lives and creating a better future, which is part of our outcomes.
In the following discussion of our value chain, you will see how we draw on our various capitals as inputs and, through our activities, convert them to outputs and outcomes.
- Input:
Invest in people’s potential - Activities:
Explore and expand for continuous growth - Output:
Evolve to become
critical thinkers - Outcomes:
Enter society as value creators
Input:
Invest in people’s potential
Our students
Our student body is an invaluable input into our value chain. The image below shows the composition and size of the student body in 2020:
Student recruitment
We adapted our response to stakeholder needs and expectations in 2020 in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Owing to the pandemic and lockdown, we could not pay physical visits to schools or host other recruitment events such as open days and sport events. As a result, we had to explore and introduce new student recruitment interventions.
Broadening access to studies for students of the NWU
UnivPrep is a one-year programme offered as a Senate-approved short learning programme and enhances access to specific degree programmes at the NWU. Each year, approximately 45% of successful UnivPrep participants become eligible to apply for formal degree studies.
Financial aid
In 2020, the NWU’s financial aid offices administered R2,4 billion. This mostly comprised government funding (and a limited amount of other external funding), as well as a substantial amount from the university’s own funds.
Government funding for bursaries amounted to R1,9 billion (81% of the total amount allocated for of bursaries, including Funza Lushaka bursaries administered by NSFAS). A sum of R107 million was outstanding from NSFAS at year end which, once received, will increase government’s contribution to 85% of the total amount for bursaries.
We contributed R211 million to student bursaries, which is 8% of the total funds allocated for financial aid. By supporting academic performance and needy students, we increase our throughput rate and the value of our human capital and demonstrate our commitment to social justice and an ethic of care.
As an example of how we sought to explore ways to adapt to the ‘new normal’ during 2020, we had to expand our financial aid to students even further. We did this by providing 3 534 laptops with a value of R19,8 million and data worth R12,4 million so that students could continue their studies online and finish the academic year successfully.
Student development and support
We continued to offer focused academic support, mainly online, enabling students to achieve academic success. (More information about how we increased student success is available here.) Where the different lockdown levels during the pandemic allowed us to reach out with other forms of assistance, we also offered non-academic support services such as psychosocial, health, sport and arts and cultural services.
Our staff
Another important input into our value chain is our staff complement. In 2020, we had a total of 4 140 permanent staff members, compared to 4 077 in 2019.
The following table shows how our complement of permanent academic staff compares with that of other South African higher education institutions (based on 2019 audited HEMIS data):
| Institution | Total |
| University of South Africa (Unisa) | 1 866 |
| North-West University | 1 575 |
| University of Johannesburg | 1 330 |
| University of KwaZulu-Natal | 1 249 |
| University of Pretoria | 1 224 |
| University of Cape Town (UCT) | 1 184 |
| University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) | 1 204 |
Staff development and support
The NWU's permanent staff comprise 1 632 academics and 2 508 support employees. We consider them an invaluable part of our human capital and invest continually in providing the support and development they need to excel.
When we moved to online learning in 2020, we explored new ways of supporting our staff, for instance by expanding our suite of training courses. For example, we introduced several webinars to empower our academics to master techniques for successful online teaching.
Other important tools for developing our staff are academic promotions and awards programmes. We also place great emphasis on the holistic wellbeing of our employees. You will find more details about this aspect of staff development in the section on how we perform against our strategy.
Academic promotions
The annual academic promotions process is a recognition programme that builds academics for the future, meaning academics who share the NWU’s values and ethos as a unitary institution of superior excellence and, more broadly, contribute to the realisation of the National Development Plan and subscribe to the Pan-African ideal.
The principle underpinning academic promotions is the importance of creating mutual value both for the academic and the NWU.
Altogether, 102 academic promotions were approved in 2020, on par with the promotions approved in 2019.
From 2019 to 2020, black academics’ share of promotions increased by 8,3% overall. This translated to increases of 2% in black promotions to associate professor, 2% to professor, 1,92% to senior lecturer and 3% to lecturer
Caring for our staff
One of the greatest challenges we face in recruiting and retaining staff is the competition among South African universities for academic talent. Our response to this challenge, which relates to risk cluster 3 (academic matters) revolves around ensuring we keep our employees engaged by creating an environment that is underpinned by an ethic of care.
This encompasses the biopsychosocial and spiritual wellbeing of our employees. As many of them worked from home during 2020, we had to expand our thinking and explore innovative ways to support them through our Wellness programme. By conducting most interventions on virtual platforms, we proved our readiness to adapt and evolve.
These interventions centred on equipping line managers and their teams to adapt to remote working and remain resilient in the face of adversity. For instance, managers received online management coaching, empowering them to deal with difficult situations involving employees and to promote employee wellness as part of their management responsibilities.
Funding
Research funding
The limited external funding available in 2020 for research and innovation was put to good use:
| Awarded | |
| Freestanding bursaries | R25 499 796.00 |
| Freestanding bursaries for travel | R21 53 |
| Block grant bursaries | R3 210 000.00 |
| NRF postdoctoral awards | R2 887 500.00 |
| Chairs awarded | R20 401 401.62 |
| Research grants awarded | R17 919 833.16 |
| TOTAL awarded received from NRF | R69 940 068.94 |
| TOTAL unspent funds in 2020 | R7 551 273.98 |
Funding for technology transfer and innovation
Our Technology Transfer and Innovation Support Office established a R4 million pre-seed fund in a co-funding partnership model with the SA SME Fund, a collaboration between government, labour and business. The pre-seed fund provides grants of up to R500 000 for qualifying early-stage technology development projects and complements the Technology Innovation Agency’s Seed Fund programme.
As traditional sources of funding for technology transfer were either frozen or reallocated, the Technology Transfer and Innovation Support team concentrated their efforts on building new funding relationships and channels to external funding.
In exploring new paths, we made a special allocation of strategic funds available for key Covid-19- related projects.
International funding
The table below shows the international funding each faculty received during 2020..
| International funding for research | Actual as confirmed from faculties |
| Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences | R29 700.00 |
| Faculty of Education | R371 981.67 |
| Faculty of Humanities | R4 626.72 |
| Faculty of Engineering | R1 853 091.37 |
| Faculty of Health Sciences | R4 954 131.49 |
| Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences | R7 623 476.49 |
| Grand total | R14 827 754.30 |
