Lesley Cowling
LAST week saw the unusual (though gentlemanly) spectacle of South Africa’s science councils justifying their work and its relevance to the country in open hearings. The hearings are unlikely to have a significant effect on the councils’ budgets for the 1997/1998 financial year, but the process marks the beginning of a new role for them: a move away from the splendid isolation of the past and toward getting behind national goals.
#In the past, the budgets for the various councils have been pretty much the same year after year, with some adjustment for inflation and salary increases. The government had an arms-length relationship with the councils, some of which have been criticised for being unproductive white elephants.
The new Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology is changing that relationship, not by rushing in and micro- managing the scientists, but by linking funding to “output measures”, or results.
“We don’t want to be bureaucrats in white coats, telling scientists what to do,” says Dr Rob Adams, deputy director general of science and technology in the department.
As a result, the councils did not make their submissions to department officials, but to a panel of 16 scientists and technologists drawn from a wide range of disciplines and a number of science and technology (sci-tech) sectors.
The panel included researchers from universities, like Friedel Sellschop, deputy vice-chancellor of Wits, and heads of research departments in industry, like Dr J Steward of the Chamber of Mines. Members of policy units and some state departments were also represented.
The panel’s job is to recommend how about R200-million should be carved up between the councils. The councils and national facilities have already received more than R800-million of their usual budgets, with the Agricultural Research Council getting the biggest slice of the pie (28%) and the South African Bureau of Standards the smallest (4%).
* The recommendations will go to the Committee for Science and Technology on November 12, which will meet under the chairmanship of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki.
But it is unlikely that funding to any one council will be slashed, leading to the closure of some divisions and ending research programmes. The department would prefer to base any reorganisation on more substantial examination of the councils.
The White Paper on Science and Technology lays out a programme for reviewing the councils every few years. The reviews will look at what each council contributes to national goals, the scientific quality of its results and general management.
The reviews will get industry and international researchers to rate the quality of each council’s work. Adams says hearings are not enough, because the panel can only rely on what the councils tell them.
So why have them in the first place? “They are a step between the old system and the reviews,” he says. The idea is to get the councils thinking about their goals and re- examining their role.