Our vision is to unleash human potential to create a fair and just society, and our staff continue to demonstrate incredible potential and show empathy and support to all: family, friends, colleagues or strangers.

There is an appreciation from the Vice-Chancellors’ Excellence Awards committee that teamwork, collective action, collaboration and leadership have contributed towards the health and wellbeing of colleagues and ensured the sustainability of the university.

There is an annual call for anyone who is aware of teams or individuals who have gone over and above the line of duty to make a difference in the lives of others through transformative change, to nominate them for the Vice-Chancellors’ Excellence Awards. Awards will be made in three categories: global citizenship, service excellence and transformation.

We encourage all professional, administrative support and services (PASS) staff to apply or nominate colleagues for the Global Citizenship Award and the Service Excellence Award, while all staff at UCT involved in transformation work are invited to apply for or nominate colleagues for the Transformation Award.

A brief outline of each of the categories is as follows:

• Service Excellence celebrates and recognises outstanding service by staff, including activities, initiatives, practices and/or projects that have contributed to the delivery of exceptional or significantly improved services to UCT’s staff and students (an award for PASS staff).
• Global Citizenship recognises individuals or teams who have demonstrated excellence in living out the UCT mission through areas of service, the pursuit of knowledge, the dignity of the human being and contributions to the common good (an award for PASS staff).
• Transformation aligns with the strategic plan of the university and our vision for excellence, transformation and sustainability, and is aimed at recognising and encouraging staff to take an active role in driving institutional culture change (an award for all staff).

Nominations

Once the annual call for nominations has been made through a VC Desk communication to the campus community, nominations should be submitted by email and addressed to the committee. Nominations must consist of a detailed statement making the case for the award in line with the criteria.

The policy for the awards sets out the framework of awards in three categories and the process for implementing the awards scheme.

Announcements

The awards will be announced at the UCT Annual Awards ceremony held each year.

Past recipients

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019