The latest available figures on research and development in South Africa show that expenditure is slightly up, but it has not reached the government’s target of 1% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to South Africa’s science and technology department.
Issuing the results of a survey conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council’s “Knowledge Management Group”, Arts, Culture, Science and Technology
Minister Ben Ngubane said at Parliament in Cape Town on Thursday that in 1997/98 the R&D survey recorded expenditure of R4,1-billion, or 0,69% of GDP, including both private and public sector spending.
The 2001/02 figures — provided by the HSRC — showed a shift to R7,5-billion rand, “which is equivalent to 0,76% of GDP,” said Ngubane.
“We are happy that there has been an improvement of R3,4-billion from the earlier survey,” he told journalists.
Noting that research and technology indicators were important contributors in the evaluation of national competitiveness, he noted that the closure of “key technology missions of the pre-1994 government — including the defence and
nuclear energy programmes — had resulted in a reduction of the total research
and development spend from 1,1% in 1990 to 0,7% in 1994.”
“This reduction took place as our new democracy emerged and our national system of innovation needed to expand to respond to the needs of 40-million people as opposed to a mere five or six-million,” he said.
Science and Technology department director general Rob Adam said the national R&D strategy aimed to double government investment in science and technology by 2005 and achieve a national R&D expenditure target of at least 1% of GDP by the year 2005.
“The improvement in the level of spending is welcome, but we must see it as a milestone on the journey, not the destination.”
SA spends proportionately more on R&D than Argentina, which spends 0,42% of its GDP, but less than China, which spends 1,09%. Israel topped the world list at 4,81%.
While South Africa had a total of 33 897 R&D personnel, as a ratio of the total population it is one of the lowest in the world, at 1,9 per thousand employees.
OECD countries such as Japan, Sweden and Finland, had 10,2, 10,6 and 15,8 respectively.
The business sector was the major performer of R&D, with nearly 54% of all R&D undertaken. The higher education sector undertook 25,3% of national R&D, while government performed just short of 20% of it, but financed just over 28% of it.
The major fields of R&D in South Africa were engineering sciences (20%), applied sciences and technology (15%), information and communication technologies (nearly 13%), social sciences and humanities (10,6%), medical and health sciences (just over 10%) and agricultural sciences (9,2%).
Adam noted that South Africa had targeted programmes that stimulated applied research and experimental development through the Innovation Fund, the Competitiveness Fund and the Support Programme for Industrial Innovation. – I-Net Bridge