The book is about intentionality, starting with the deliberate decision by South Africa's new democratic government in 1994 to establish two new (and post-apartheid) higher education institutions - one in the Northern Cape and one in Mpumalanga. Premised on social justice ideals, such a decision responded to access and inclusion imperatives, with a focus on rural, poor and economically marginalized communities. It was pregnant with promise and the potential to not only create opportunities for transformation and redress but also offer possibilities for social renewal and economic growth and development. Such a promise materialized when in 2013, Sol Plaatje University, situated in Kimberley, Northern Cape, was promulgated and in 2014, opened its doors to receive its first cohort of 124 students. In 2022, the institution has grown to host over three thousand. The researchers, to varying degrees, pose and address pertinent questions on the purpose, role and place of universities in society as transformative spaces or as catalysts for reconstituting the trajectory of communities and cities by their very presence, their identities and ideological positions as well as their institutional cultures, practices and projects. Some chapters trouble notions of community engagement through a critical analysis of contemporary literature and practices on the subject while others provide case studies of what is possible when a university is intentional about its vision to be and become an engaged institution; one that places community at its centre.
Human Sciences Research Council (2026) studied this question.