A recurrent theme throughout the conference held in October 2019, albeit often
embedded in discussions, was our situatedness in history and local realities, and
simultaneously in a twenty-first century world. Little did we realise, at the time, that
this report on Reinventing South Africa’s Universities for the Future will be published
in the context of a world-wide pandemic that will fundamentally alter our lives and
sense of well-being, as well as how universities and knowledge institutions in the
service of society will need to continue — nonetheless — into the future