South Africa’s National Council on Innovation has released its latest report on science, technology and innovation. It reveals a mixed bag—much of it familiar to researchers—but it also provides a useful overview of the country’s science system.
The good
In 2016/17 the government spent R1.6 billion more on R&D than it had budgeted for. Across departments it made R14.85bn available and spent R16.43bn.
Scientific publications per million inhabitants rose to 350 in 2017, which is higher than the global average of 307. Scientific publications by South Africans grew at an annual rate of 7 per cent from 2008-2017. Also up are the country’s share of the world’s top-cited papers and its share of the world’s total publications.
All the brouhaha about the fourth industrial revolution seems to be paying off. The report found that South Africa had a relatively high share of global publications in artificial intelligence and the internet of things.
For many years the former Department of Science and Technology, particularly under minister Naledi Pandor, focused on gender equity. South Africa’s percentage of female researchers, 44.1 per cent, is higher than the global average of 38.1 per cent.
The number of science, engineering, and technology doctorates grew by almost 75 per cent in 2017, after two years of decline. More South African women received PhDs in 2017 than South African men. Doctorates per million of the population doubled between 2007 and 2017.
Close to half of masters graduates and slightly more than half of PhD graduates received their degree in a science or engineering discipline in 2017.
The bad
Unfortunately, the report also flags several areas of concern.
South Africa’s spending on R&D as a percentage of GDP has flatlined for several years. The report points out that South Africa’s latest spend of 0.82 per cent is far from the 1.4 per cent average of other upper-middle-income countries. A contributing factor is that both government funding of business R&D, and the amount of R&D funding spent by businesses themselves, have fallen.
South Africa’s science pipeline is another area of concern. The qualifications awarded in science, engineering and technology as a percentage of the total is lower than the global average and the averages of every other economic grouping, even low-income countries.
Research also remains skewed along racial lines. White people continue to dominate the research sector, making up 50.5 per cent of all South Africa’s researchers.
The number of researchers of the national total employed in the business sector dropped from almost half in 2008 to less than a third in 2019. Patent applications fell between 2008 and 2017, and are a tenth of the global average.
NACI warns that South Africa’s competitive advantage in medium-technology exports is falling and that estimates suggest that by 2020 the country will rank below lower-middle-income countries.
The missing
Ultimately, much still remains to be done to make sure South Africa’s considerable research capacity benefits all of its people.
NACI stresses that science must be used for the benefit of South Africans. This means addressing the legacies of the past.
“For economic and social democracy to emerge successfully in South Africa, it will be crucial to gear and direct the National System of Innovation to facilitate and enable far-reaching transformation of the dominant power relations and the socio-economic institutions via which it is regulated and reproduced,” writes Derrick Swartz, NACI chair, in the report.
Swartz says that STI should specifically pay attention to the marginalised in South Africa: the youth, the poor and women.