Postgraduate Studies in Science

The vision of the Faculty of Science at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, is to be the science faculty of choice on the African continent for

• students and alumni who value a comprehensive and life-enriching science education,
• faculty and staff members pursuing excellence and innovation in teaching, service and research in a diverse environment.
• individuals and organizations seeking partnerships with the scientific and technological community.

It is our mission to create, disseminate, and apply scientific knowledge.  We innovate and excel in teaching and research so as to advance the goals of the University and the development of society.

The Faculty of Science is committed to producing highly qualified graduate students and research of international standard reported in the leading peer-reviewed literature.  The Faculty comprises some 240 full time academic staff, about 175 support staff and some 2500 undergraduate and postgraduate students in ten Schools clustered in four groupings, the Mathematical Sciences, the Physical Sciences, the Earth Sciences and the Biological Sciences.  We host five SARChI research chairs in the Faculty, have secured two more for 2011, and hope to secure more in the 2011-2012 DST/NRF call.

Our researchers participated in collaborative programmes with researchers at the statutory bodies, private sector companies, and many South African universities, as well as universities in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, Australia, Japan, China, the Middle East and Africa. 

There are a number of Research Institutes in the Faculty (Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontology; Rock Art Research; Materials Physics Research; Molecular Sciences; Economic Geology) and several research groupings recognized by the University Research Committee and the Faculty Research Committee in all the major clusters. 

The Faculty is generally regarded to be a research-active Faculty, although the level of research across the Schools is uneven, as data presented in this report will show.  Our acknowledged strengths in research include Materials Sciences and Solid State Physics, Chemistry and Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Mining Geology, Theoretical Physics, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Evolution & Behavioural Ecology, Geophysics, and Palaeontology and Archaeology.

In several of these disciplines we rank amongst the top 1% of institutions world-wide based on the impact of our research as determined by a citation analysis.

“Excellence in Diversity”