South African museums, jobs and research efforts are under pressure, say senior academics
A revised palaeoscience strategy for South Africa has been delayed by the country’s science budget cuts, leaving the research community hankering for change.
The revised palaeoscience strategy was intended to be approved by 31 March this year, but budget cuts have pushed the target to early 2025—with actual implementation only expected in 2027, the Department of Science and Innovation revealed in its performance plan for 2024-25.
The document, published on 12 April, says the department is revising the palaeoscience strategy to align it with the country’s Science, Technology and Innovation Decadal Plan 2022-32 and to support research in disciplines where South Africa has particular geographic advantage.
But Kimberleigh Tommy, chief executive of the not-for-profit palaeoscience funder Past, told Research Professional News that while her organisation welcomes the intention to create a new long-term strategy towards sustainability in the sector, reforms are “extremely urgent”. Delays have “ripple effects” for both governmental and non-governmental stakeholders, she added.
Deteriorating situation
The department writes that the new strategy will address recommendations made in 2022 by a panel of prominent South African palaeoscientists tasked with reviewing the sector’s performance between 2014 and 2020.
Those recommendations included developing palaeoscience at historically disadvantaged and new institutions, increasing research capacity at museums, creating more jobs, retaining staff and marketing South Africa as a palaeotourism destination.
University of Cape Town palaeobiologist Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan, one of the reviewers, said this week that while she does not yet know which of these recommendations are being considered in the new strategy, not much progress has been made in developing palaeoscience at historically disadvantaged institutions or museums.
“I think the situation in museums has deteriorated even further since our 2022 report,” she told Research Professional News. “There is very little active research by museum staff, since most of the scientific positions have not been filled,” she said, adding that there is “still a dire need for funding support” for important palaeoscience locations such as the West Coast Fossil Park in the Western Cape.
Tommy agreed that the country’s museum sector is strained, with Past recording increased funding requests. “These are the institutions that provide a platform for engagement with our broader publics—something that is vital to science and its continued support but vastly undervalued,” she said.
Brain drain
Rebecca Ackermann, co-director of the Human Evolution Research Institute at the University of Cape Town, said reforms were urgently needed to keep talent in South Africa.
“2027 is a very long time away and we have a number of excellent new Black South African graduates looking for jobs who we are going to lose to other careers or countries,” she said.
“I worry that the current state of things will continue to encourage helicopter research from overseas, just at the time when we should be working harder to decolonise our science.”