South African Science and Technology Indicators 2008
This report was prepared by the NACI Indicators Reference Group (IRG) and the NACI Secretariat.
The South African Science and Technology Indicators 2008, recently published by the NACI Indicator Reference Group provides an overall picture of South Africa’s national system of innovation by presenting statistical data relating to trends and performance.
The Minister of Science and Technology requested NACI to provide regular progress reports on the state of the NSI as a follow-up to the well-received NACI background report to the OECD country review. This important report and the OECD’s own report gave a considered view of South Africa’s innovation policy in 2006. NACI has included a high level diagnostic assessment of the NSI in its 2008/09 annual report using an indicator based approach. The most recently available indicator information was used. The current document provides a wider and deeper set of indicators that underpinned the work presented in the Annual Report.
The government framework for performance assessment of the science and technology system was outlined in the National Research and Development Strategy (2002). The indicators listed therein were clustered into broad themes:
- Future R&D capacity
- Current R&D capacity
- Imported know-how
- Science, engineering and technology human capital
- Technical progress (improvement and innovation)
- Business performance
- Quality of life
- Growth and wealth creation
The information provided in this report which follows the same approach is essential for:
- Policy leadership: informed and timely reflection and planning on national priorities, policies, programs and challenges in science and technology,
- Stakeholder engagement: for those interested in quantitative and systematic information regarding science and technology activity in the country,
- Benchmarking: providing information on international competitiveness of a country and for providing a basis for international contacts and cooperation.