/ 7 November 2014

Time to place ourselves at the nexus of scientific policy development

Naledi Pandor
Naledi Pandor

Minister of Science and Technology Naledi Pandor has voiced her support for the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Scientometrics and Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (SciSTIP) in helping South Africa achieve its goal of becoming a leading knowledge economy.

“The Centre will enhance the debate on science policy and make contributions that spearhead the science of this country to new heights. The outputs of SciSTIP will provide a rigorous basis for understanding the strengths and to identify possible weaknesses in our National System of Innovation,” she said.

“It does seem that this important work should have been recognised long before it was. However, now that we have the CoE, I would urge the team to position itself at the nexus of every scientific policy development and review process. 

“I look forward to the day when the information and evidence provided by this Centre will be a sine qua non for all policy development and implementation review processes. We wish the SciSTIP team a fulfilled and eye-opening research journey.”

The value of the work and collaboration across sectors was demonstrated, she said, in the recent workshop SciSTIP hosted in response to the Draft Policy Framework on Differentiation in the South African Post-School Education System that had been published for public comment. 

“This workshop provided stakeholders with crucial and evidence-based scientific information. This and the flow of information among researchers, policymakers and implementers, facilitated a clear understanding of the pertinent issues regarding the policy framework with proposals of how to take it forward.

“This is precisely what we had hoped would be the role of this Centre of Excellence. Basically, SciSTIP outputs should be to make scientific analysis relevant to, and valued in understanding how we are progressing in meeting our development priorities. Its aim and objective should be to make the science and practice of bibliometrics, scientometrics, science and research usage an essential component of all policy development work.”