The White Paper on science and technology aims to turn South Africa into a power to be reckoned with, writes Lesley Cowling
THE White Paper launched by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in Pretoria this week is the culmination of 18 months of debate by representatives of all sci-tech sectors.
Their aim? Well, like sportsmen and athletes, South Africa’s scientists and engineers dream big – they wanted to come up with a plan to change the country from a developing nation to a success story like Japan or Germany.
The White Paper has fixed on one major strategy to achieve this: developing what it calls innovation. This is defined as “the application of creative new ideas, which in many cases involves the introduction of inventions into the market place”.
Innovation, in other words, is not just coming up with clever new gadgets or smart ideas, but making them work in daily life and in every sector. It also means identifying specific needs (perhaps we are importing shoe soles, for example, and should make them here) and encouraging researchers to come up with solutions.
The White Paper proposes that a number of legislative bodies be created to carry out these tasks. These include:
* A national advisory council on innovation
The council, which will advise the government, will consist of about 22 members, appointed by the minister and drawn from different sectors – mixing local Einsteins with Bill Gates-type entrepreneurs, so to speak. They will conduct studies and consultations, and be responsible for reviews of government- financed institutions (like the science councils).
* An innovation fund
This will be the “carrot” that encourages local reseachers and entrepreneurs to come up with the kind of projects the government wants. For example, 50% of the funding will go to projects that deal with the needs of disadvantaged communities, like supplying water, housing, communications.
The money for the fund will come, at first, from the usual science allocation in the budget. To keep costs down, the fund will give preference to a few big or long-term projects, rather than lots of small projects that require more administration.
* A national research foundation
Until now, the task of funding research in universities and technikons has been parcelled out to departments in a number of different institutions, and money has also been provided for research from the funding given to tertiary institutions by the Department of Education. The White Paper seeks to co-ordinate this funding process through creating the foundation.
It will have four divisions: one for natural sciences and engineering, formed from the present Foundation for Research and Development (FRD); one for social sciences and humanities, formed from the Centre for Science Development at the Human Sciences Research Council; a division for health sciences; and one for agriculture. The Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology plans to discuss with the Department of Education the way in which it funds research in universities.
The White Paper also proposes a number of projects. These include:
* A research and technology audit
The FRD has already embarked on this exercise, which aims to assess the strengths and weaknesses of South Africa’s sci-tech system and find out what the sci-tech community should be doing. It will also look at how the government can kickstart and maintain the process of innovation, and how research and technology is working in the economy. One of the products of the audit will be a database that includes all the findings of the audit.
* A research and technology foresight exercise
The word “foresight” in the title says it all: the department wants to find out what technologies will be most useful in the future. This could be anything from silicon chips to making gold jewellery. Japan, “the home of foresight”, has been conducting such exercises since 1971, and most of the world’s more competitive countries have followed suit. A board of high-level people has already been appointed to oversee the process.
* A white paper on exploiting information technology
The department is planning to go through the process all over again, this time focusing specifically on how the ever-expanding (and sometimes bewildering) world of information technology can be used here. Does this mean we will all be on the Internet? Watch this space.