The National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI) commissioned a Study to Determine the Competitive Aspects of the Required Physical Infrastructure to attain the Vision of the National System for Innovation (NSI). Infrastructure in the context of the NSI refers to the combination, in a special context, of all the facilities to provide the base for education or research in a nation.
This study was commissioned by the Science, Engineering and Technology for Women (SET4W) Reference Group1, a sub-committee of the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI) in the Ministry of Science and Technology.
In 2004 the National Council for Innovation (NACI) published a study entitled Facing the Facts: Women’s Participation in Science, Engineering and Technology. The study found that in most Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) disciplines, and in the sector as a whole, women are significantly under-represented. In addition, only 6.4% of a sample of 17 000 research projects in the public sector was found to have an explicit gender perspective. In short, there was less science being produced by women and for women than by and for men.
To work towards correcting these imbalances greater insight into their determining conditions was required. Consequently NACI, the South African Reference Group for Women (SARG), and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), commissioned a study exploring the experiences and perceptions of women working in the SET sector. This report presents the findings of that study, and the subsequent recommendations for policy formulation.
The report provides a profile of the postgraduate sub-sector of HE and the HE research community in South Africa with a view to informing policy- makers and stakeholders of key trends and issues. Postgraduate education and HE research form a pivotal part of the national science and innovation system and therefore have a key role to play in contributing towards national development. It is therefore important to track and analyse trends in these domains.