CSSR Releases 2025 Annual Report Celebrating Research Excellence and Social Impact
The Centre for Social Science Research has published its 2025 Annual Report, showcasing another year of impactful, policy-engaged research across adolescent wellbeing, digital parenting support, democracy and governance, pandemic preparedness, and sustainable societies.
In her Director’s Letter, Catherine L. Ward highlighted the Centre’s “extraordinary output from a relatively small team,” with 86 peer-reviewed publications, 12 book chapters, and three edited collections produced in 2025.
Some highlights from the report include:
- The Adolescent Accelerators Research Hub completed fieldwork for the HEY BABY study, creating one of the world’s richest longitudinal datasets on adolescent mothers and their children, with 84% retention among mothers and 78% among children.
- Researchers launched major new collaborations on pandemic preparedness through the NRF-funded Institute for the Preparedness and Prevention of Pandemics (IP3), involving partners from nine South African universities.
- The Safety and Violence Initiative reported groundbreaking findings from the ParentApp for Teens trial in Tanzania, the first rigorously tested digital parenting programme in a low-resource setting shown to reduce physical, emotional, and sexual violence against adolescents.
- The ParentText randomised controlled trial surpassed recruitment targets, enrolling more than 24,000 caregivers through a large-scale WhatsApp-based parenting intervention.
- The Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy in Africa continued its influential work on elections, governance, and public policy across Southern Africa, producing 15 journal articles, nine book chapters, and three edited collections.
- The newly established Social Intervention Research Unit launched collaborative student-led research examining resilience and participation among Black youth from the Cape Flats.
The report also reflects CSSR’s growing emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration, early-career researcher development, and translating evidence into real-world policy and practice across Africa and beyond.
CSSR Annual Report 2026 Download