research and studies

South African Science and Technology Indicators booklet was prepared by the Monitoring, Evaluation and Indicators project team of the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI). The indicators contained in this booklet are useful in the assessment of both the state of the national system of innovation (NSI) and the impact of key NSI policies and strategies. Reference to key indicators is a vital contributor to various debates in policy formulation and thereby to the promotion of evidence-based policy decisions.The indicators cover a ten-year period spanning 2003 to 2012. This is a very important period for the NSI, following the inception of the National Research and Development Strategy (NRDS). Coincidentally, most of the targets of the NRDS were set for 2012.
The indicators contained in this booklet are therefore critical in assessing the impact of this strategy on South African knowledge generation capacity and the progress achieved in positioning science-based technology to improve quality of life and economic growth. In addition, it is important to monitor these indicators as we are halfway through the Ten Year Innovation Plan (TYIP), which is key in positioning South Africa as a knowledge-based economy.

It is now well established in the literature that innovation constitutes a key process underpinning economic change within capitalism. This broad consensus does not however imply that there is a single perspective that informs policy thinking on innovation. Rather what has been evidenced over the preceding decades is the emergence of diverse interpretations that however retain resonance with the general appreciation that “…a national system of innovation can only be judged as healthy if the knowledge, technologies, products and processes produced by the national system of science, engineering and technology have been converted into increased wealth, by industry and business, and into an improved quality of life for all members of society”

The purpose of the project reported here is twofold:

1. to assess how community and regional innovation systems have been responding to societal challenges confronting rural South Africans, and
2. to evaluate how the two systems are aligned with each other for increased societal impact. The specific objectives of the study were to: Investigate if community and regional innovation systems exist in South Africa; Explore how such systems respond to both economic and societal challenges; and Establish if there are linkages between the different systems with the aim of encouraging active participation by local rural communities.

The National Biotechnology Advisory Committee’s (NBAC) national workshop entitled, Feeding the Biotechnology Pipeline was held on Thursday 30 September 2010 at the Irene Country Lodge, Irene. The workshop was attended by stakeholders and representatives form the public and private organisations in the biotechnology sector. The aim of the workshop was to explore in particular the scope and nature of policy or system challenges experienced in the biotechnology sector, and this was presented in the following themes: Intellectual Property (IP) awareness, funding gaps, human capacity, and regulatory issues.