National Research Foundation plans to fund 1,000 fewer researchers in 2024-25
The National Research Foundation of South Africa will pay out fewer research grants over the coming year following cuts to its government allocation.
Research Professional News can reveal that the NRF expects to fund around 1,000 fewer researchers in the 2024-25 financial year, which begins this month—a 28 per cent drop from 2023-24.
Stipends for postgraduates, including honours, master’s and PhD students, will also fall by around 350 from last year.
The decline comes after finance minister Enoch Godongwana slashed the Department of Science and Innovation’s budget by 3 billion rand (US$159 million) over the next three years in last month’s national budget.
Scaling back
The NRF will receive R1bn less than expected over the next three years, split more or less evenly over the three-year period, Anneline Smith, the NRF’s head of corporate finance, told Research Professional News.
While some of the cuts will affect the agency’s operational budget, the “biggest impact” will be on grant funding, she said.
In its annual performance plan for 2024-25, the NRF says it aims to issue 2,594 grants to postdoctoral, early career and established researchers. In 2023-24, it funded an estimated 3,612.
The number of NRF-funded postgraduate students will drop from an estimated 5,943 in 2023-24 to a target of 5,579 in 2024-25.
Neither spending category is forecast to recover by the end of the three-year budget planning period, ending in 2026-27.
Priority growth
“While it may be alarming to see a decline in the number of postgraduate students and researchers funded by the NRF, growing the numbers is a key priority,” the NRF said in a statement.
Amid the current financial austerity in government, the possibility of increased funding is limited, it said. In response, it has embarked on a programme to grow funding through public and private partnerships.
In addition to the tight financial outlook, there are other reasons why grant numbers are dropping, the NRF said. Growing grant sizes is one: the average research grant increased from around R105,000 in 2018 to just under R160,000 in 2022.
Student grants have been increased to cover the full cost of study, including accommodation and living costs—a move that has reduced grant numbers but increased the proportion of grants going to targeted demographic groups such as Black South African women, the NRF said.
“We are seeing the positive effects of our decisions in terms of the transformation of both the student and researcher profiles, as well as support for a growing number of young researchers,” the NRF said.