UFH Department of Zoology and Entomology

Our Vision

We aim to achieve excellence through high-quality education and research relevant to local, regional and national needs, and through cooperation with leading researchers and educators both in South Africa and internationally. Our departement wishes to balance its teaching and research activities, the two nourishing one another. Students will be involved in research as early as the third year and the visiting postgraduates and researchers will be involved in the teaching as well, in the form of lectures (PhD students and postdocs) and seminars (invited researchers and other professionals).

Our Mission

• To awaken an awareness of the need to explore, understand and conserve animal diversity.
• To create an attractive department where students want to come and study.
• To train students in zoological sciences and to equip them to apply themselves meaningfully in any activity requiring zoological expertise. Ultimately, our mission is to make our students employable.
• Undergraduate level training aims to provide a wide-spectrum comprehension of the anatomy, physiology, systematics, ecology, behaviour and conservation of terrestrial and aquatic/marine animals.
• At postgraduate level, our objectives are concerned with maintaining a high level of scientific excellence in zoological research.
• To constantly improve the quality of both our teaching and our research, postgraduate students being at the interface between the two.
• To involve the department in community-based and outreach activities, whenever and wherever possible.

Hence, our vision and mission are fully aligned to the university-wide goal to reach excellence in teaching, research and community engagement. They are also current in the sense that the related course programmes correspond to what is offered in other national and international tertiary institutions with animal biology programmes.

The success of our mission will be measured by various outcomes. Good teaching and success in heightening awareness should lead to the attraction of a growing number of learners and the retention of a higher number of students at BSc Honours and postgraduate level (MSc and PhD). Good teaching should also lead to a better pass rate, the training of good postgraduate students and therefore the implementation and achievement of good research. Ultimately, good research will lead to a growing number of publications in high-quality (i.e. with high impact factor), international, peer-reviewed journals, as well as to the attraction of postdoctoral researchers and postgraduate students educated in other – South African or foreign – universities. More publications in peer-reviewed journals and the training of more postgraduate students should also result in the obtaining of more subsidies and incentive money to the University and to the DZE, as well as research grants from the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF) and other governmental and private funding bodies to staff members (supervisors). Finally, success will also be measured by an increase in the number of students pursuing postgraduate careers in animal biology in other universities and/or being employed in areas where their zoological expertise is required.