None of the parties contesting South Africa’s May election say in their manifestoes how they will tackle the root causes preventing growth in the country’s science and innovation system: a lack of focus and skilled people, writes Michael Kahn.
May 7 is election day in South Africa, marking the fifth such event of the democratic order, now twenty years young. The day has its own significance in science and technology, being the anniversary of the first demonstration of a radio receiver in Russia (1898), the first description of the integrated circuit (1954), and in 1998 the death of our own Alan Cormack, the South African physicist who developed x-ray tomography.
So what might one expect of science and technology in our unfolding political, economic and social future, and what do the contesting political parties say on the matter?
Before answering, consider what has happened in our research and innovation system since 1994. First, the inputs to the system: money and people.
The accompanying figure displays the ratio of total R&D expenditure to GDP, a good indicator of system vitality. This spoon-shaped curve shows that we seem to be back where we started. In fact while R&D expenditure has risen tenfold, so has the staff bill, so that the research and innovation system is stuck in size relative to the economy. Spoonfuls of salary increases do not entail real growth.
As for demographics, there has been change. Today 50 per cent of science council researchers are black; in 1994 the figure was less than 5 per cent. This is a major achievement, albeit science councils’ staff numbers have also not grown significantly.
So what of outputs: patents, trademarks and copyrights, plant cultivars and animal breeds?
Here we hold our ground, doing much the same things as we did two decades back. We export commodities and make other peoples’ motor cars (not many patents here!) and produce nutritious foods and healthy livestock (we are in the world top 20 for cultivar registration). Notable innovations have been in ICT, banking, e-government, microsatellites and Sasol gas-to-liquid technology.
The research and innovation system looks after essential public research services, and produces an increasing number of postgraduates for us and for our neighbours.
When it comes to scientific publication and international networking and collaboration, we are doing even better, and display commendable productivity, quality and openness. Our participation in the EU Framework Programmes is outstanding.
Today our leading companies earn up to half their revenues abroad. Indeed relative to size we have created more transnational companies than any other economy. To achieve this, our companies innovate, drawing on world experience, and sometimes on their own and others’ R&D. Hence DSTV across Africa, Nandos in Accra, and Aveng in the Gulf.
What then are the views of the present administration and the wannabes? The Government Twenty Year Review dealt with some of these issues, but managed to confuse research and innovation. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) – an impressive achievement – will be ‘big’ science, not innovation; ditto the already built SA Large Telescope. Promoting applied research on fuel cells, lasers and titanium may find business take up. If it does, then and only then, do we have innovation.
This brings one to the ANC Manifesto. It starts well by emphasizing the importance of research and innovation, but then like the review shifts the spotlight onto the SKA. It proceeds to argue for a 1,5 per cent spend on R&D to support the ‘innovation base’, implying a linear model of innovation whereby basic research is the precursor of innovation. After this the authors claim unspecified achievements in “nuclear technology, astronomy, mining, energy and medicine.” For reasons unknown no attempt is made to link research and innovation with the National Development Plan (NDP).
For its part, the current largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, seems to echo the NDP by prioritising agriculture and the green economy, and argues for supportive enablers like venture capital, business services, incubators, and fast broadband. Its authors appear to be speaking to its agribusiness constituency, and to business in general.
The smaller and newer parties offer a mixed bag. The Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO), the party of a previous minister of science and technology, provides a good problem statement but offers little that is new. The Congress of the People (COPE) does no better whilst newcomer Agang is silent on research and innovation.
As for the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), they “will support and subsidise technological innovation which will lead to the development and manufacturing of a South African automobile (car), computer, tablet, phone and other means of world class technological innovations”. Their slogan could be: “Let them have tablets.”
But no party really grapples with the services economy, or with the two root causes that underpin our failure to grow the research and innovation system: a lack of focus and too few skilled people. Addressing these would require the clarity of vision that the implementation of the NDP demands, and that does not appear to be on any party’s research and innovation agenda.
So scientist-voter, do your analysis, toss the dice, place your X.
Michael Kahn is a professor at Stellenbosch University and an independent advisor on innovation policy