Address by Naledi Pandor MP, Minister of Science and Technology, at the National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF) Award Ceremony, Johannesburg
Mpho Modikoane, Director of Ceremonies,
Professor Ali Dhansay, NSTF Chair
Jansie Niehaus, NSTF Executive director
Mike Fraser, President South32
Researchers, Post-Graduates, Principals, Educators and Learners, Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, good evening
Awards Ceremonies are events for celebration. This is the 17th awards evening of the NSTF and there is much to celebrate in our national system of innovation.
Tonight’s finalists tell us a great deal about science in democratic South Africa.
Over the past seventeen years of the NSTF awards we have had 171 winners (teams and individuals). Out of the 122 individual winners 41 (34%) were women and 53 (43%) were black.
These statistics signify a welcome change in terms of both race and gender and we celebrate that.
In the fields of research, we note that medicine has been matched by the life sciences.
Over the past four years (2011 to 2014) the 36 individual winners worked in the following broad disciplines – Life Sciences 11, Medicine10, Astronomy two and one apiece for Archeology, Nanotechnology and Mathematics Education.
In this year’s list of finalists Medicine ranks at the top once more. Bearing in mind that most of the categories are for innovation and engineering this is even more remarkable. This success of medicine is a feature in the emerging researcher, established researcher and lifetime categories.
The University of Cape Town does well with 17 finalists as does WITS with seven. We are especially encouraged at the celebration of two spin out companies from the University of Cape Town as this reflects an important commitment to converting knowledge to economic opportunity – an urgent priority for our innovation system.
Tonight is also an illustrious parade of professors. Of special note are the South African Research Chair (SARCHi) professors. Their achievements affirm the DST commitment to the research chair programme and the R2.2bn allocated to this programme since 2008.
We celebrate these chair holders as we believe they will bring the best of research and innovation to South Africa and to our partners on the African continent. We firmly believe that Professor Salim’s CAPRISA, Professor Valerie Mizrahi’s Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, Professor Kelly Chibale’s Drug Discovery and Development Centre (H3-D) and Professor Helen Rees’ Reproductive Health and HIV Institute will rank among the best in the world and eventually equal model institutes such as world class laboratories in the USA and UK.
Government is committed to supporting the Research Chairs and hopes that as they attract local and international students, they will also attract international research funds and increased research supervisory capacity to South Africa and Africa. We look to them to establish new partnerships with institutions across the globe, to strengthen innovation in the South and to build a new cohort of capable productive researchers and scientists. We celebrate tonight because we are confident they will achieve many of these aspirations.
The lifetime finalists for tonight deserve special mention - Professor Jane Carruthers, an environmental historian, for her land restoration work in the Kruger park; Professor William Harris, an optometrist, for his work on inexpensive alternatives for compensating for refractive errors; Professor Bert Klumperman for his contribution to the field of radical polymerisation; Professor Helen Rees, an obstetrician, for her work in HIV prevention, reproductive health and vaccinology; Professor Robert Scholes, a systems ecologist, for his contribution to environmental science; and Professor Beric Skews, an engineer, for his work on shock and blast waves.
All this pleasant celebration must nevertheless serve too as a constant reminder of sobering facts we should not neglect.
According to the most recent NACI report – our share of world exports for high technology manufacturing industries remains low at 0.09% for the pharmaceutical industry, 0.07 % for computer electronics and the optical industry and 0.14% for the aerospace industry in 2013. We need increased innovation to revitalise these industries.
Furthermore, the report indicates a low percentage of full time equivalent researchers per thousand workforce -1,5 per thousand workforce in 2012 yet at the same time a welcome increase of 9.29% in the number of doctoral degrees awarded between 2012 to 2013.
In addition we need to work harder at ensuring that teaching staff in higher education have doctoral qualifications. According to the NACI report; “In 2012 the proportion of higher education staff with doctoral qualifications was 39.3% at traditional universities 25.0% at comprehensive universities and 14.7 % at universities of technology.”
If we are to achieve the ambitious PHD targets of the National Development Plan we need a robust well designed and resourced response to these inadequacies.
The report also reminds us of the urgency of addressing the Research and Development pipeline. Too few learners pass mathematics and physical science. Enrolments in science, engineering and technology (SET) qualifications at our public higher education institutions remain low at just 28.8% of the total in 2013.
These statics must motivate us to do more to support our schools to succeed in mathematics and physical science, encourage us to work with government and the private sector to ensure we build a cohort of capable and productive scientists, technologists and engineers.
Tonight is about celebration, we heartily congratulate all the awardees, we thank South32 and other sponsors for their support and encourage greater private sector investment in this partnership so that we can reward our premier scientists magnificently. We celebrate fully alert that it is not yet enough and that we need to work closely with NSTF to see how we can use these wonderful 17 years of awards to motivate South Africa’s research community to do more and better.
The awardees are our example, the young people present here this evening must resolve to follow in their wonderful footsteps. It is possible to do more, it is in your hands to do better.
Thank you.
