About this report

Discover the NWU

With the Covid-19 pandemic finally subsiding, our staff and students returned to our campuses, ready and eager to tackle the 2022 academic year while adhering to the last Covid-19 protocols that were still in place at that stage.

Living through the pandemic was a journey of discovery: we discovered old strengths and new possibilities within ourselves and our world.

In 2022 we harnessed several pandemic-driven discoveries and innovations, for instance adopting a hybrid-flexible (HyFlex) teaching-learning approach that enables simultaneous face-to-face and online teaching and learning.

By resuming our on-campus activities, we returned to our essence: being a contact university with a vibrant student life. Through this “home-coming”, we were also able to rediscover the treasures the NWU has to offer.

As a result, Discover the NWU became the theme interlacing all our activities in 2022 and, by extension, the story we tell in this integrated report.

Our story has two levels of meaning. Our first intention is to show you how we as a university lead people to Discover the NWU and the myriad of opportunities we offer to guide them on their own journeys of discovery. Our second aim is specifically linked to this report: we invite you, our readers, to discover more about the NWU itself – especially about how we create value by empowering people.

We aim to show you how we mobilised and affected our resources, skills and relationships, known as our "capitals", for the greater good.

There are six capitals: intellectual, human, social and relationship, manufactured, natural and financial. (Read more about our capitals below.)

Although we strive to increase value in all instances, our capitals can also undergo either a net decrease or no net change. In such cases, value is eroded or preserved.

Although we strive to increase value for the university and our stakeholders at all times, we realise that changing circumstances in our internal and external environment may hamper our efforts to accomplish this.

We include these instances – where value is maintained at existing levels or even eroded – in our integrated report, as we aim to tell our story in a balanced and transparent way.

Our story is for you

The Discover the NWU story told in this report is intended for you, our stakeholders.

Our stakeholders are those individuals or groups whom we affect through our activities and services, and whose actions can also affect our ability to successfully implement our strategy and achieve our goals. This integrated report refers mainly to our primary stakeholders. They are our students, alumni, Council, staff, the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), peer universities, collaboration partners and business communities (as future employers of our students).

However, we believe that our story will also be of value to the other However, we believe that our story will also be of value to the other stakeholders with whom we engage. with whom we engage.

How we tell our story

At the beginning of our story, we give an overview of the NWU and explain how we have interacted with our external environment.

Also in this report you will find a graphic of our business model, followed by the risks and opportunities that affect us, and how we are dealing with these. The section on our strategy aims to inform you about where we want to go to and how we intend to get there, while the section on how we performed against our capitals describes what we did to achieve our strategic objectives.

How to navigate our story

We use different icons to show the connections between the various sections in our integrated report, and enhance your journey of discovery.

Click on each tab below to read more

• Our capitals

  

• Our strategic goals

  

• Our enablers

  

Materiality of the report content

We use the concept of “materiality” to decide what information to include in this report. As set out in the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC) Integrated Reporting Framework, we see material matters as issues that:

• substantively affect the university's ability to create value over the short, medium and long term; and
• are important to any stakeholder wishing to make an informed assessment of the NWU’s ability to generate value.

How we identify material matters

In this report, we discuss the factors with the greatest potential to impact our ability to create value. Identifying these material factors was the work of our integrated reporting task team, led by the NWU’s registrar and including the deputy vice-chancellor for planning and the chief strategy officer in the office of the vice-chancellor. The team identified those matters with the highest potential to impact our ability to create value.

In the process, we took the following frameworks into account:

• the NWU’s Annual Performance Plan (APP)* that puts the strategic plan into action;
• the common strategic assumptions that underpin our strategy;
• the institution-wide risk register**;
• the IIRC’s Integrated Reporting Framework; and
• the DHET’s reporting regulations.

We also considered any factors in our external environment that substantially affect our ability to create value.

In addition, materiality was informed by the matters our stakeholders raised during their interaction with the university. These are described in the section on how we engage with our stakeholders, in the table under the subheading: Issues raised.

Reporting period and scope, and suite of reports

Our integrated report reflects the performance of the NWU across our three campuses for the period 1 January to 31 December 2022.

Information about our performance is both financial and non-financial. This includes facts about our non-financial performance, risks and opportunities and the internal and external factors that substantially influence our business. Where material, we discuss the real and potential impact of these matters on our ability to create value.

Reporting cycle	Annually in December
Contact point for questions	marlene.verhoef@nwu.ac.za
Suite of reports	Our integrated report is the primary vehicle for reporting to our stakeholders. It is supplemented by the following: annual financial statements for the year ending 31 December 2022, which can be found here. documents for various stakeholders, which can be accessed here.
Our reporting framework	This integrated report has been prepared in accordance with the IIRC’s International Integrated Reporting Framework and the DHET’s Regulations for Annual Reporting by Higher Education Institutions (published in June 2014 and incorporating principles from the King IV Report).

Assurance

Internal and external assurance providers give us assurance about the effectiveness of the internal controls at the NWU. Their input has been incorporated into this report.

We have also ensured the accuracy of our reporting by taking the following steps:

• After compiling the integrated report, we submitted it to the University Management Committee. The committee considered the completeness and accuracy of the content and provided feedback where necessary, which was then incorporated into the integrated report. Only then did we submit the report first to the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee and then to Council for approval.
• The student and staff data in this report was obtained from our Institutional Planning and Strategic Intelligence Department, which is also responsible for submitting NWU data to the Higher Education Information Management System (HEMIS).
• The summarised, audited consolidated financial statements in this report were extracted from the audited consolidated financial statements, prepared in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and independently audited by our external auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
• Our auditors also independently audited the information in our performance assessment report.

The financial statements, including the auditors’ report, are in Annexure 6.

More information about combined assurance can be found in the risk section of this report.

Council approval

Council, upon advice from its Audit Risk and Compliance Committee, is responsible for overseeing the integrity, accuracy and completeness of this integrated report.

Council confirms that it has reviewed the contents of the report and applied its collective mind to the preparation and presentation of this document.

Furthermore, Council believes that it has appropriately considered the accuracy and completeness of the material matters, as well as the reliability of the information presented in this report.

Council has sufficiently considered and materially presented these matters in accordance with the Integrated Reporting Framework of the IIRC.

The NWU Council approved the 2022 Integrated Annual Report on 22 June 2023.

MR BERT SORGDRAGER
CHAIRPERSON OF COUNCIL

MR THABO MOKGATLHA
CHAIRPERSON OF THE AUDIT,
RISK AND COMPLIANCE COMMITTEE