Like many organisations the University of Johannesburg (UJ) has looked back at 2021 and reflected on what has happened in its space this year.

This has culminated in the Intuthuko Holiday Edition magazine which is available to read here as a PDF.

Of particular note is the “2021 highlights” which picks out some key figures from the year with a focus on funding:

• More than 80 percent of African students were funded during 2021
• Of which 70 percent are females
• 10 percent of the beneficiaries were from the Economic Sciences
• R10 million was allocated ot bursaries for students in the Education and Humanities Faculties 
• More than 20 percent of beneficiaries were from the Sciences Faculties
• More than R1 million was allocated towards infrastructure development, community engagement projects and providing devices to our beneficiaries
• More than R40 million was awarded to research 
• More than 60 percent of our beneficiaries are between the ages of 18 and 27 

While this snapshot of figures doesn’t provides extra information about the R40 million plus that went into research, we do learn a bit more about it in a column written by Professor Saurabh Sinha, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research and Internationalisation.

“The overall stature of research outputs produced by our researchers has increased during this academic year, despite the multitude of challenges faced during the various stages of lockdown and restrictions, we continued to combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was evident in the recently released QS World University Rankings, where UJ climbed Five places to position 434, with the institution Firmly retaining its position among the top 500 universities in the world. Prominently, on the Times Higher Education Impact Ranking, the University is number 1 in the African continent. This demonstrates the connectedness of our research and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 Agenda,” Sinha writes.

Again a bit lacking in detail and that seems to be the theme of the magazine: a pat on the back for both students and staff for the last year. While that’s deserved as education has become exponentially more difficult during the pandemic, we would have liked to see more facts and figures aside from the ones listed above.