Programme Director, Mrs. Nomkhosi Ndlovu;
Professor Rushiella Songca, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Mangosuthu University of Technology;
Professor Mncedisi Maphalala, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation and Engagement;
Professor Kogieleum Naidoo, Deputy Director of CAPRISA;
Ms Omphile Netshiozwi, Patent Attorney and Director of OMN Attorneys;
Representatives of the Department of Higher Education and Training;
Members of the MUT Council, university executives, academics and staff; researchers and students; distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen.
Good morning.
It is a pleasure to join you for the official launch of the Women in Research Initiative for Growth and Transformation, known as WRIGHT. I thank Mangosuthu University of Technology for the invitation, and I congratulate Professor Songca, Professor Maphalala, the Research Directorate and everyone who has worked to bring this initiative to life.
I am pleased that WRIGHT is being launched at a university of technology. Universities of technology connect research to industry, to professional practice and to communities. They move knowledge from the laboratory, the workshop and the field into processes, products and services. Women must be able to take part at every point of that journey.
WRIGHT also sits within a wider ambition at MUT. The university has committed R2 million to research initiatives with a focus on first-time researchers, and it is developing a multidisciplinary research journal, a research conference and the “MUT in Research” programme. These are the building blocks of a research institution. WRIGHT can help ensure that women are supported to build lasting careers and to become leaders within it.
The theme of this address is “Breaking Barriers: The Critical Role of Women in Driving Global Research Innovation”. I will speak to the barriers that remain, the role women play and the global setting of this work, and then to how the Department can partner with WRIGHT.
The barriers that remain
Allow me to briefly reflect on the progress our system has made. Women account for 47.7% of South Africa’s research workforce, according to the 2023/24 National Survey of Research and Experimental Development. They make up 52% of the academic workforce and 62.6% of university enrolments, and they account for about 45% of scientific publication authorship. Globally, women are only 31 to 33% of researchers, a share that has barely moved in a decade, and only around 22% of STEM-related employment in G20 countries. By international standards, South Africa is closer to parity than most.
The National Research Foundation’s data shows the same trajectory. Between 1999 and 2025, the share of South African women among NRF-funded researchers grew from 17% to 47%, and the share of women among postgraduate students receiving NRF bursaries grew from 40% to 60%. Over the same period, Black South Africans grew from 15% to 57% of NRF-funded researchers and from 46% to 86% of NRF-funded postgraduate students.
Yet presence in the system is not the same as influence over it. The barriers that remain are barriers of system design, not of individual ability.
The first is progression into leadership. Women are 47% of NRF-funded researchers, but 35% of NRF-rated researchers, 13% are Black women. Women also remain under-represented in research management and senior decision-making.
The second is discipline. Women have reached near parity in many life and health sciences, but remain under-represented in engineering, computer science and mathematics-related fields, which are the fields that shape emerging technologies.
The third is time and capacity. The Department’s 2018 study of emerging researchers, known as the Silent Majority study, found that heavy teaching loads, administrative demands, limited research time and growing supervision responsibilities fall hardest on early-career academics. Academic staff numbers are growing more slowly than postgraduate enrolments, which adds to that pressure.
The fourth is concentration and investment. About 63% of NRF funding goes to the ten universities with the highest research output, and 83% of Research Chairs are hosted at those institutions. National spending on research and development stands at 0.61% of GDP, against the National Development Plan target of 1.5%.
The fifth is the journey from research to the market. Our performance in patenting and commercialization remains below desired levels, and, as the Minister said at the South African Women in Science Awards in August 2026, female-owned technology enterprises face severe venture capital deficiencies.
The critical role of women
Why does it matter that we break these barriers? The first reason is the commitment this country has made in its science policy. The 1996 White Paper on Science and Technology committed us to equity through redress, including the eradication of gender disparity, and the 2019 White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation reaffirms inclusivity and transformation.
The second reason is national capability. The Department has adopted the mantra of placing science, technology and innovation at the centre of government, education, industry and society. That cannot be achieved if half of society is under-represented in directing the effort. It is why the theme of this year’s South African Women in Science Awards was “Placing Women at the Centre of Science, Technology and Innovation”. When women are placed at the centre, the whole national system of innovation is strengthened. Their perspectives and leadership improve the quality, relevance and inclusiveness of research, and help ensure that emerging technologies are ethical, inclusive and responsive to the needs of society.
The third reason is the evidence of what women already achieve. Professor Liesl Zühlke of the South African Medical Research Council won a South African Women in Science Award in 2023, and this year was named the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Laureate for Africa and the Arab States. Professor Priscilla Baker received the Order of Mapungubwe in Bronze for her contribution to scientific research and public engagement. The late Professor Keolebogile Shirley Motaung pioneered work in stem cells and regenerative medicine, with a strong emphasis on indigenous knowledge systems, and turned research into enterprise; this year the DSTI Fellowship was renamed in her honour. And among today’s speakers, Professor Naidoo has trained more than one hundred students, 89% of them women, and her work on TB and HIV has helped shape policies and treatment strategies worldwide.
These women show what the system can produce when capable people are given support and opportunity.
The Department’s response: a connected pipeline
The Department’s response rests on the 2019 White Paper, the Science, Technology and Innovation Decadal Plan for 2022-2032 and the National Development Plan 2030. Our human capital development framework recognizes three categories of researchers, namely next-generation researchers, emerging researchers and established researchers, and supports each through the NRF and our other implementing agencies.
For next-generation researchers, the Ministerial Guidelines introduced in 2013 require that at least 55% of postgraduate bursaries go to women and 80% to Black students. The 2020 Postgraduate Funding Policy institutionalized these guidelines and introduced full cost of study support, so that postgraduate study is accessible irrespective of a student’s socio-economic background. In 2025/26 the Department supported 6 246 postgraduate students with bursaries. The DSTI-HSRC Internship Programme complements this by placing graduates in workplaces: more than 6 000 interns have been placed since 2005, 64% of them women and 88% Black, across more than 100 host institutions.
For emerging researchers, programmes such as Thuthuka, the Black Academics Advancement Programme, new Generation of Academics Programme, postdoctoral fellowships and the Advancing Early Career Researchers and Scholars (AECRS) programme help researchers build the track record and networks needed to compete. The AECRS programme was designed to address mentorship gaps, heavy workloads and low participation in knowledge production, and it includes Thuso Connect, a national mentorship platform. In 2025/26, 1 644 emerging researchers were supported, including 708 Black women, and the target for Black women emerging researchers has been increased for 2026/27.
For established researchers, the South African Research Chairs Initiative, the Centres of Excellence and NRF rating support are the main instruments. As of April 2026, women held 104 of the 198 operational Research Chairs, and women were 51% of the 3 355 researchers supported in 2025/26. We are also addressing the concentration of resources that I mentioned. At the beginning of this year, 41 new Chairs were awarded to historically disadvantaged institutions, universities of technology and new universities, and the NRF has begun implementing University Programmes and Collaborations, a set of bespoke interventions to build research and human capital capacity at historically disadvantaged institutions. Between 2020 and 2024, the number of NRF-rated researchers grew by 57% at universities of technology and 48% at historically disadvantaged universities, compared with 45% at comprehensive universities.
Where funding, supervision and institutional support are aligned, transformation and excellence advance together. The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory has awarded 1 905 grants across the human capital pipeline since 2005, with completion rates of 96% for honours, 92% for master’s and 84% for doctoral students. In the early 2000s, South Africa had fewer than five radio astronomers. Today we have a recognised radio astronomy ecosystem built around MeerKAT and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
The Innovation Fund has leveraged more than R1.3 billion for venture capital partnerships, technology-based enterprises and SMMEs, and the Technology Innovation Agency provides seed funding, incubation and venture capital support for female-led technology enterprises.
Measuring progress: recognition, representation and retention
The Department’s most visible recognition of women in research is the South African Women in Science Awards. We have hosted SAWISA since 2003 as our contribution to National Women’s Month, to recognise women researchers and to profile them as role models for younger women and girls. The 2026 awards cover distinguished and young women researchers in the humanities and social sciences, the natural and engineering sciences and public engagement with science, together with a special category, “Innovation for Impact: Women Leading Change”, and fellowships for seven master’s and seven doctoral students.
The awards affirm years of difficult work and make women researchers visible, and that visibility tells a girl in a rural classroom that this life is possible. But we should be honest about what an award can and cannot tell us. Awards recognise exceptional individuals. They do not tell us whether the typical woman researcher is progressing, whether early-career researchers are being retained, or whether women are moving into leadership. An award tells us that something is possible. Good evidence tells us whether our institutions are making it probable. We need both.
I therefore propose a simple way of thinking about progress, built on three words: Recognition, Representation and Retention. Recognition asks whether women’s contributions are identified and valued, and SAWISA, the NSTF and NRF Awards, the L’Oréal-UNESCO programme and other national awards speak to it. Representation asks whether women are present across the research system, in NRF ratings, Research Chairs, research management and leadership. Retention asks whether women remain in research, move from one career stage to the next and translate their knowledge into intellectual property, products and enterprises. I offer this as a framework for discussion rather than as adopted policy, as you move forward with WRIGHT.
Global research innovation
South Africa has the largest public science system on the continent, and it is a relatively small system that punches above its weight internationally. Our researchers contribute to global knowledge in health, astronomy, climate science, energy, agriculture and the social sciences. That standing has been built through international partnership, and women researchers must have full access to it.
The Department supports this through several platforms. Since 2016, in partnership with the Academy of Science of South Africa, we have supported nearly 100 young South African scientists, with strong representation of women, to attend the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. We support the BRICS Young Scientist Forum for researchers under 40. The International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) - South African Women in Biotechnology Programme enables South African women at PhD and postdoctoral level to carry out research at ICGEB Cape Town, with mobility support to its components in Trieste and New Delhi. And through our partnership with the European Union, which dates back to 1996, South African researchers can collaborate under Horizon Europe, the Union’s flagship programme for 2021 to 2027, which has a budget of 95.5 billion euros.
Women researchers are also building their own networks. The South African national chapter of the Organisation for Women in Science for the Developing World was established in 2009 and has 551 members. The WISTEM portal connects women in the technology sector across developed, emerging and developing economies. And the South African chapter of SADC WISETO serves as an umbrella body that coordinates national initiatives and links the institutions supporting women, youth and learners in STEM.
The global environment is changing. Global uncertainty is affecting research collaboration and funding flows. In that environment, South Africa will keep its international partnerships open while building capabilities it can rely on for its own critical needs. That strategy cannot succeed if we draw on only part of our talent.
Global research innovation also depends on research that is relevant at home: research organised around clear public missions, produced together with the institutions and communities that will use it, and inclusive in who helps define the problem and who benefits from the solution. For a university of technology, that is the daily business of research as meaningful transformation cannot end with a published paper. It must extend into intellectual property, patents and global market leadership. Ms Netshiozwi will speak on this shortly.
Partnering with WRIGHT
Let me turn to how the Department sees its partnership with WRIGHT. Our approach is not to create a new programme for every new initiative. We should connect talented women to the national system of support that already exists, to make sure that support responds to their circumstances, and to measure honestly whether it helps them progress.
We see this partnership resting on four pillars.
The first is alignment. WRIGHT should be anchored in the national human capital development framework, so women at MUT are connected to the Department’s and the NRF’s support for researchers at every career stage, so that MUT’s own research ambitions and national priorities reinforce each other.
The second is evidence. A serious transformation agenda needs a clear baseline and a disciplined way of tracking progress. I encourage WRIGHT to use the Recognition, Representation and Retention framework to understand where women are advancing at MUT and where they are not, and to use that evidence to improve decisions rather than to demonstrate compliance.
The third is connection. Research careers are built on networks as much as on funding. WRIGHT can link women at MUT to the national community of women in science, to the recognition and role models that platforms such as SAWISA provide, and to the international partnerships through which South African research reaches the world.
The fourth is impact. Research must travel from the laboratory into industry, public services and communities. WRIGHT should ensure that women are equipped to take their work into innovation and enterprise, working with the Technology Innovation Agency and the intellectual property profession.
Underpinning all four pillars is inclusion. WRIGHT should be designed from the outset for women in all their diversity, and the lessons it learns should be shared with other universities of technology and historically disadvantaged institutions, so that MUT contributes to national policy and practice as well as benefiting from it.
This partnership carries responsibilities on both sides. The Department’s responsibility is to sustain a pipeline in which women can enter, develop, advance and lead. The institution’s responsibility is to ensure that its own systems make progression possible, including fair workload allocation, protected research time and clear routes to promotion. Mentorship is most effective when it is supported by fair workload and protected research time.
Closing
Five years from now, we would like to see more women at MUT who have established independent research profiles, secured research funding, supervised postgraduate students, lead multidisciplinary projects and moved into positions where they shape institutional priorities, and research led by women at MUT reaching communities, public institutions and industry. No nation can reach its true potential if it excludes its women and girls from opportunities in science, technology and innovation. That is the case for WRIGHT, and it is the case for the work of this Department.
The Department of Science, Technology and Innovation remains committed to strengthening the national system of innovation and the human capabilities on which it depends. Through the NRF and our other implementing agencies, we will continue to support the development of researchers. But government cannot do this alone. Universities, science councils, industry, professional bodies, communities and researchers themselves all have a role to play.
To the women researchers at MUT: your work matters, and you should be able to pursue excellence without overcoming avoidable barriers at every step.
I encourage the university leadership to make WRIGHT part of the way MUT works, not a programme that sits alongside its core business, and review its progress against evidence.
To the Steering Committee: build partnerships, listen to women at different stages of their careers and share your lessons with the wider system.
And to the young women and girls who may one day choose a career in science: we must make sure that you can see women who look like you and come from communities like yours doing work that changes how we understand the world. Visibility makes a future imaginable. Strong institutions and sustained support make it real. When a girl in a rural classroom looks at a woman in science, she should be able to say: this life is possible for me too.
I congratulate Mangosuthu University of Technology on this important initiative, and I wish WRIGHT, its Steering Committee and every woman researcher at MUT strength, courage and success in the work ahead.
Ngiyabonga kakhulu.
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