M Mangena: Group of Eight (G8) and United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Forum

11 May 2007

"Education, Research and Innovation: New Partnership for Sustainable
Development"

Chairperson, Professor Elaine El-Khawas from George Washington University in
the United States
Honourable Mr Fabio Mussi, Minister of University and Research, Italy
Honourable Mr Andrei Fursenko, Minister of Education and Science, Russia
Doctor Janez Potocnik, European Commissioner for Science and Research
Professor Carlo Rubbia, Nobel Laureate European Nuclear Research Centre (CERN),
from Geneva
Professor Martin Perl, Nobel Laureate, Stanford Linear Accelerator, United
States of America
Honourable ministers
Government officials
Entrepreneurs and academics
Ladies and gentlemen

If ever a country needed innovative thinking, it is South Africa. And that
is why my government is so encouraging to innovation. In a strange way, the
acceleration of innovation through technology almost coincided with the advent
of democracy in my country, and the subsequent experience has been both
exhilarating and frustrating. South Africa is very anxious to create an
environment which encourages and enables innovation and innovative
thinking.

Accordingly, government plays a formative role in research and innovation
through developing and approving policy, legislation and regulatory frameworks;
setting the overall national agenda, and creating an enabling environment for
research and innovation to thrive. Immediately after the inception of the
democratic government in 1994, the process to revamp the Science and Technology
administrative apparatus in the entire country was set in motion. Since then,
we have put forward a whole range of mechanisms to encourage innovation in the
private sector, government research institutes and the higher education
sector.

The National Research and Development Strategy has been an enabling
framework for South Africa's innovation system to prioritise economic sectors
with growth potential such as Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, Information
Technology and Space Technology. The strategy has enabled government to
increase investment in human capital to transform and fill the skills gaps
identified in key sectors.

In the same way, more focused sector strategies such as the Biotechnology
Strategy, the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Strategy and the Nanotechnology
Strategy were formulated. We identified a need to enhance the research
infrastructure in order to create a knowledge workforce for advanced technology
businesses, and so support the country's future competitiveness and its ability
to achieve an improved quality of life.

Clearly, the provision of public funding is a key component of my
government's responsibility in creating an enabling environment for Research
and Development (R&D), but making the right decisions about the
disbursement of these funds is critical. In order to track our investments, we
have initiated a process whereby a national R&D survey is conducted every
year. This year's Innovation Survey is the first to be completed. The 2004/05
R&D Survey indicates that South Africa's R&D expenditure, as a
percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), has increased from 0,68% in 1997 to
approximately 0,87% in 2004. This is against the backdrop of a healthy GDP
growth. The business sector accounts for 56% of R&D performance, followed
by the higher education sector with 21%, with the government sector
contributing 21% of the total R&D. This is not a figure that compares well
with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
countries whose average expenditure on R&D is approximately 2,3%. We are
aware that we must harness this public expenditure to attract private sector
funding for R&D, if we are to achieve a target of one percent of GDP spend
on R&D in the next financial year. The link between government and industry
is crucial. Our current human capital programmes have now introduced Research
Chairs with industry partnerships to strengthen this linkage. The first group
of scientists appointed as university research chairs, an initiative that aims
to attract top minds and reverse our declining research output, was announced
last year.

Apart from generating new knowledge and increasing research outputs in
patents and publications, the scientists are to train Doctor of Philosophy
(PhD) and Masters' students, and attend to the fault-lines we have long
identified in our system. Our aim is to create 56 research chairs by 2008, and
210 by 2010. In order to address the challenge of insufficient human capital in
science, engineering and technology, the training of PhDs is a key goal. In the
context of a growing economy, and a recognised skills shortage, appropriate
funding is essential to attract appropriately skilled individuals into the
research programmes of higher education, otherwise the aim of increased numbers
of PhD graduates will not be realised.

Technology for Human Resources in Industry Programme (THRIP) fosters
industry-academia collaboration by subsidising industry research conducted by
students. Many successful enterprises have been created through this programme.
THRIP is a good example of how to leverage funds to attract funding for
university research. Not only has it brought more money for research, it has
also successfully funded hundreds of postgraduate students. Since its inception
16 years ago, THRIP has made an important contribution to skills development,
supporting on average 2 400 tertiary students each year. Its funding has now
reached the billion Rand mark, an amount that has been matched and exceeded, by
industry. Another initiative is the private sector R&D Tax Incentive
introduced last year. This allows private companies to claim 150% of the
expenditure incurred on scientific and technological R&D, as well as
accelerated depreciation of capital assets used for R&D.

As you well know, the main effect of a tax incentive is to increase the
after-tax return of the investment to the firm, so that it becomes more
profitable to make that particular investment. Tax incentives therefore not
only have the potential to attract R&D funds from abroad, but also affect
positively the emigration of R&D capital abroad, and give incentives to
local industries to increase their spending on R&D. There are a number of
other fresh initiatives. One of these is the Centre for High Performance
Computing. The facility is intended to foster research geared towards
addressing grand challenges in science, engineering, medicine, and humanities
that are complex and large-scale with broad scientific and environmental or
economic aspects.

Here, the goal is to create an enabling science and technology environment,
particularly through setting up national facilities, which will support
cutting�edge research, and play a significant role in creating an enabling
environment for advanced manufacturing industries, biotechnology and space
science, as well as developmental issues such as infectious diseases.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me now turn my attention to research and
innovation. The Innovation Fund addresses problems that are serious enough to
impede socio-economic development or affect the country's ability to compete in
products and services. Through the Innovation Fund, and the Bio Regional
Innovation Centres (BRICS), my department has focused its efforts in
establishing the institutional infrastructure, legislation and policy framework
that is needed to integrate the process of knowledge creation and its
subsequent commercialisation, for national benefit. Amongst others, the fund
promotes technological innovation via consortia of expertise drawn from both
public and private sectors.

The instruments of the Innovation Fund are specifically tailored to foster
the pursuit of high-risk technologies by business entities by creating
partnerships that draw on technical expertise in the public research
enterprise. The incentive to the business partners is the equal sharing of the
R&D costs of the market-oriented research agenda. I must also mention
Tshumisano. Established in 2002, the mandate of Tshumisano is to provide
support for the small-medium and micro enterprises (SMME) sector through its
Technology Stations Programme (TSP). One of the aims of this programme is to
strengthen technological innovation activities and related skills upgrading to
increase the relative competitiveness of SMMEs in targeted sectors. These
sectors include automotive, agri-foods processing, electronics, metal value
adding, chemicals, metal casting, composite and moulded plastic.

These Technology stations are based at various Universities of Technology
across the country. The approach is a two-way learning process, in which SMMEs
improve their operations through technology assimilation and upgrading their
innovation capabilities. And for the Universities of Technology this process
enriches their teaching and learning activities by improving their equipment
and their real world understanding of the industry challenges. Distinguished
friends, in just over a dozen years or so of our democratic rule, we have had
to address what our National R&D Strategy identifies as the "Innovation
Chasm," the gap that exists between the knowledge generators and the market.
And one of the things my department is proposing to do to narrow or close this
Innovation Gap is to build an institution to be called the Foundation for
Technological Innovation, (FTI).

This will be an institution with the competency to assist our National
System of Innovation to mine the existing body of knowledge to develop
technology-based services and products that could be commercialised and
diffused through the economy.

Let me conclude my address by drawing your attention to one of our
government's skills development initiatives relating to science and technology.
The Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) and the Sector
Educational and Training Authorities (SETAs) are other strategies and tactics
that have been implemented to address various shortages of skills. In
particular, JIPSA, as a framework, is aimed at addressing the shortage of
urgently needed skills. It targets and mobilises unemployed graduates, retired
experts and foreign experts, and deploys them into our economy. Through this
process, knowledge is shared and transferred.

All these programmes and initiatives are carried out in partnership with
business, labour, academia, research councils, higher education institutions
and other knowledge producers as part of developing our National System of
Innovation. We are determined to realise our mission to develop, co-ordinate
and manage a National System of Innovation that will make us achieve a critical
mass of the required human capital, realise sustainable economic growth and
improve the general quality of life of the people of South Africa, including
our regional neighbours and the continent of Africa.

I thank the Forum for the opportunity to update you on these
developments.

Issued by: Department of Science and Technology
11 May 2007
Source: Department of Science and Technology (http://www.dst.gov.za)