Faculty researchers, fellows, and postgraduate students at the 2025 Annual Prestige Research Seminar hosted by the Faculty Management Sciences.

The Faculty of Management Sciences hosted its annual Prestige Research Seminar, a day devoted to celebrating bold ideas, collaborative inquiry, and research that reimagines what is achievable in a changing world.

This year’s theme, “Navigating an Uncertain Future: Perspectives from the Management Sciences,” explored how innovation, scholarship, and strategic leadership can help societies adapt and thrive amid complexity. The event brought together faculty researchers, fellows, and postgraduate students to present diverse perspectives on how management sciences can illuminate pathways through uncertainty.

Professor Philippe Burger, Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences from the University of the Free State, delivering his keynote address at the Annual Faculty Prestige Research Seminar.

Delivering the keynote address, Prof. Philippe Burger, Dean: Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS), a Fulbright Scholar, and author of Getting it Right: A New Economy for South Africa, explored the intersection of higher education, technology, and global transformation branding universities as both anchors and architects of an evolving future. He emphasised three pillars essential to navigating this future, namely, universities, partnerships, and AI integration. According to Prof. Burger, higher education is undergoing profound change driven by financial pressures, technological disruption, and global uncertainty. He argued that the universities that will thrive are those that collaborate, innovate, and lead with adaptability and foresight.

He further highlighted how universities worldwide are increasingly forming coalitions and consortia to share expertise, pool resources, and expand their educational reach. He cited examples such as the Western Cape consortium, which exemplifies this shift from competition to collaboration, a model of survival and progress rooted in a shared purpose.

“These partnerships,” he argued, “are not merely tactical but existential, representing a collective response to the ‘fog of uncertainty’ enveloping higher education. Beyond financial and structural adaptation, there lies a deeper transformation driven by artificial intelligence,” he explained, envisioning a near future where AI-powered tutors and VR-enhanced classrooms are not speculative concepts but the new norm. “The vision of virtual classrooms supported by AI tutors is no longer futuristic. Within a decade, such technologies will redefine both the process and the purpose of learning.”

However, he cautioned that this evolution must go beyond the technological, because the challenge is also philosophical, highlighting that universities must rethink what and why they teach, not only how. “To remain legitimate and relevant, institutions must foster critical, creative, and ethical engagement with emerging technologies and lead the intellectual charge against inequality, fragmentation, and instability.”

Prof. Burger also highlighted the broader implications of AI, referencing thinkers like Ray Kurzweil and Larry Summers, who envision the technological singularity and accelerated global growth as both promising opportunities and potential risks. “These advances call for responsible ethical stewardship, a role that universities are uniquely equipped to undertake,” he concluded.

The seminar reinforced a resounding message that the future of higher education will depend on agility, partnership, and intellectual courage. Universities must act not only as transmitters of knowledge but as navigators of progress, steering through uncertainty toward a future of shared innovation and sustainable development.

 

Uploaded: 07 October 2025