The Centre for Diversity and Social Cohesion seeks to be a leading, cutting-edge, innovative, knowledge-generation hub characterised by excellence, intellectual rigour and integrity that meaningfully contributes to synthesising and driving insights into global issues of diversity and social cohesion; social, cultural, and cognitive justice education and intercultural reconciliation.

• Function as a centralised platform of global scholarship on trans-disciplinary, multidisciplinary and intra-disciplinary insights regarding diversity and social cohesion, particularly in education, namely, race, ethnicity, culture, socioeconomic status, gender, class, language, religion, identities, political orientation, disability, social, cultural and cognitive justice education.
• Explore through research, learning and analysis how the rich diversity of South African life can be used both to affirm in critical ways the wide range of human forms of being that exist in the country and to generate new, inclusive and productive imaginations of what it means to be a South African citizen.
• Perform cutting-edge research in the stated fields.
• Enhance the status of the University of Pretoria and South African science through the above.
• Engage in capacity-building initiatives related to its research mission.

• Fulfil the indicated mission of the Centre.
• Develop national and international recognition for the Centre.
• Establish sources of funding to sustain its work.
• Contribute new knowledge to the national and international scientific community.
• Extend national and international collaborative linkages.
• Promote national objectives of human research capacity development, and human resource development.
• Generate new, inclusive and productive imaginations of what it means to be a South African citizen.
• Explore the effects of large-scale political change and transformation on defining features of education systems in diverse societies.
• Define appropriate collaborative research projects that can deepen theoretical understanding and sharpen analytical capacity on issues relating to identity, diversity, equality, democracy and social cohesion.
• Investigate, through research, effective policies and practices that can increase the ability of institutions in the promotion of the “diversity in unity” paradigm.