Colleagues, partners, and friends of the HSRC,

Thank you for the depth of thinking, the honesty, and the generosity you brought into this space. Over these sessions we have shown that engaged research is not a slogan. It is a method, a mindset, and a social contract. We asked tough questions of ourselves and of one another. We were eager to learn, and we learned deeply, from the questions we asked, the silences we held, and the stories we shared. We listened to voices that challenged us to look inward and outward, to connect the intellectual with the emotional, and the personal with the political. In doing so, we reminded ourselves that the pursuit of knowledge is never neutral. It is always shaped by who we are, where we stand, and whom we choose to stand with.

This conference has invited us to confront not only the social realities that shape our research, but also the geopolitical ones. We cannot do meaningful work without recognising how global forces, historical injustices, and unequal systems of power structure what we study and how we study it. The politics of knowledge, who produces it, whose voices are amplified, and whose experiences are rendered invisible, remain central to our mission as scholars and as public servants. The global fractures we see around us, from widening inequality and climate injustice to wars and displacement, remind us that research must not only explain the world but also change it. The struggle for justice, wherever it takes place, is inseparable from our own. We will not be free until the people of Palestine are free. Our solidarity must be intellectual, moral, and practical, grounded in a shared humanity that insists that freedom, dignity, and peace are indivisible.

Our deliberations this week were deliberate and principled. The programme was designed to bring emerging researchers into dialogue with seasoned scholars, to create a platform where mentoring and mutual learning could flourish. It was not a South African conference; it was an African conversation, situated within the broader vision of Africa’s Agenda 2063 and the aspirations of a continent that refuses to be marginal in global knowledge production. We were intentional about inclusion. We ensured that all voices mattered, that women, youth, and community partners were not on the margins but at the centre of the dialogue. This was not about the HSRC talking to itself or talking at you. It was about the HSRC listening, listening to be transformed, to understand, and to co-create a new vocabulary of engagement that bridges research and reality.

We also hope you are still inspired by the powerful and joyful moments we shared earlier this week at the HSRC Interns Graduation. Their energy, commitment, and belief in the transformative power of research remind us why we do what we do. We were equally delighted to see so many of you engaging with the HSRC Press, browsing the free book sale, and discovering new works that continue to shape the social sciences and humanities in Africa and beyond. Knowledge must circulate, and the Press remains one of our most vital vehicles for doing so, connecting scholarship, society, and imagination.

Three insights have emerged from our collective reflection. First, genuine engagement begins long before fieldwork. It starts in how we define our research problems and who sits at the table when those problems are framed. Second, communities are not subjects to be studied; they are partners in thought and practice, co-authors of the knowledge that shapes policy and change. Third, impact cannot be measured only by citation counts or journal rankings; it must be felt in policies that work, budgets that reflect justice, and lives that are lived with greater dignity. Engaged research therefore calls on us to work with humility and persistence, to build relationships that endure beyond projects, and to stand accountable to those whose lives we claim to represent.

At the Human Sciences Research Council, we are committed to carrying these lessons forward. We will strengthen co-design as a standard principle in project development, ensuring that community participation is embedded from conception to completion. We will deepen our ethical framework to reflect principles of reciprocity, transparency, and long-term benefit. We will develop new tools to measure impact not only by academic output but by tangible shifts in policy, practice, and public life. In doing so, we hope to contribute to a research culture that is not only excellent but also transformative, a culture that reimagines scholarship as service.

To the students and early career researchers here, your curiosity, courage, and restlessness have been a gift. Continue to ask difficult questions and to hold us accountable to the ideals we profess. To our policy and civil society partners, thank you for trusting us with your realities and for reminding us that research must stay connected to people. To our funders and collaborators, your faith in evidence-driven transformation keeps this work alive.

And finally, allow me to congratulate the inaugural graduates, now alumni, of the Science Diplomacy Summer School. You have shown what it means to connect research, policy, and international collaboration with empathy, excellence, and purpose. Your presence here strengthens the bridge between local realities and global dialogues, and we look forward to walking this path with you as part of a growing and connected network of African science diplomats.

The work from this conference should not end with applause. New partnerships must be explored and strengthened. Funding remains important for the HSRC and for our continued collaboration with like-minded, or even potentially like-minded, institutions such as the Botma Foundation. The private sector has a role to play, in line with the mantra of the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, by placing science, technology and innovation at the centre of government, education, industry, and society. We call on the private sector to work with us, and on government to interact with us and use research to inform policy and decision-making. Civil society and universities also have a critical role to play in developing collaborative projects that connect evidence, people, and change. We invite you to stay with us on that journey.

Finally, my gratitude to all the partners, to the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, the HSRC Executive Team, the organising team, our facilitators, and everyone who made the logistics invisible so that the learning could be visible. You have served the scholarship and the society we care about.

Let us leave with courage and conviction. If our research is truly engaged, then our democracy, our continent, and our collective humanity will feel it. 

Thank you and travel safely.