Measuring and Monitoring Innovation in South Africa
22 October 2009, 9:00 – 16:00, at STIAS in Stellenbosch
The National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI) held an expert workshop on Measuring and Monitoring Innovation in South Africa on 22 October 2009 at STIAS in Stellenbosch. The overarching objective of the NACI workshop was to contribute to the development of indicators that could be used to track broad-based innovation in South Africa. It was also envisaged that the outcome of the workshop would contribute towards raising the awareness of the general public regarding the significance of innovation.
The workshop brought together a number of local and international experts on science, technology and innovation measurement in a developing and developed country context.
These experts included: Prof Sunil Mani (Professor in Development Economics, Centre for Development Studies, Prasanth Nagar, India), Mr Stanley Ntakumba (The Presidency), Dr Jo Lorentzen (HSRC), Dr Taorai Imbayarwo (African Science Trackers, University of Stellenbosch), Mr William Blankley (HSRC), Prof Johann Mouton (Centre for Research in Science and Technology, University of Stellenbosch), Prof Anastassios Pouris (Institute for Technological Innovation, University of Pretoria), Dr Thomas Pogue (Institute for Economic Research on Innovation, Tshwane University of Technology) and Dr Saartjie Grobbelaar (Frost & Sullivan). They presented papers which covered the following broad issues:
- Current international best practice in measuring innovation in developing countries
- Evaluation of current measurement of science, technology and innovation in South Africa. Indicators best suited to track innovation in South Africa.
- Advantages and disadvantages of an “innovation index/scoreboard”
More than 40 workshop participants were drawn from government departments, science councils, universities, research based institutions and industry, business sector, development agencies as well as community based organisations.
download the presentations here
