UCDG is a Department of Higher Education (DHET) instrument, designed for “staff development, student support and development and programme development” in South African universities (DHET 2019). At WSU, it serves precisely this purpose.
It is a crucial source of researcher development funding for staff members studying towards Master’s and Doctoral degrees at WSU or any other institution of higher learning in South Africa.
It covers up to 25% of tuition fees for grantees as well as their research running expenses (such as proposal development, fieldwork, data analysis and subsistence and travel costs) up to a specified amount.
UCDG is also used to cover the costs of various capacity-building and training programmes rendered by the Directorate.
Staff can access the grant by responding to internal calls issued by the Directorate through the University Helpdesk and/or the Directorate’s Vital Mail at the beginning of each year. All completed grant application forms should be submitted to the Directorate by the announced deadline.
