Professor Robin Crewe
Dr Albert van Jaarsveld, President of the National Research Foundation
Mary Metcalfe, Director General of Higher Education and Training
Prof Roseanne Diab, ASSAf Executive Officer
Academy council members
Members of the academy present
The Chair and Panellists of the PhD study
All delegates gathered here
I’m pleased to be with you this morning to say a few words before you begin to discuss findings of the Academy of Science of South Africa’s PhD Study.
I believe that broadening our knowledge base will only be achieved by collective efforts from all science sectors but most importantly by the so called triple helix, the government, and industry and higher education institutions.
I hope representatives from these sectors are present in this gathering to give their input.
We should also recognise that a significant strengthening of the production of human capital and the institutional environment for knowledge generation is necessary, in collaboration with international partners.
Consultative meetings like this are very important for addressing critical challenges experienced in the country especially when recommendations aimed at influencing policy-making process is involved.
Indeed, increasing the number of well trained PhDs in South Africa is one of South Africa’s most critical challenges.
I talk about well trained PhDs intentionally, and avoided talking about numbers. Whereas it would look good for South Africa to produce many PhDs, it would even be better if the PhD graduates could contribute to innovation, through which the production and dissemination of knowledge leads to economic benefits and enriches all fields of human endeavour.
Forums like this are indispensable in ensuring that the national system of innovation becomes more focused on long range objectives, including urgently confronting South Africa’s failure to commercialise the results of scientific research.
I emphasise innovation but not innovation for its own sake. South Africa’s prospects for improved competitiveness and economic growth rely, to a great degree, on science and technology.
The government’s broad developmental mandate can ultimately be achieved only if South Africa takes further steps on the road to becoming a knowledge-based economy. Transformation in this direction will necessarily shift the proportion of national income derived from knowledge-based industries, the percentage of the workforce employed in knowledge-based jobs and the ratio of firms using technology to innovate.
The impact of higher education on the intellectual base and culture of our young democracy is difficult to measure and therefore perhaps not often enough or sufficiently recognised and valued. What remains enduring here and elsewhere in the world is that the development and maintenance of intellectual capital depends fundamentally on a vibrant research culture which must be sustained by a society’s higher education institutions.
While I recognise that the higher education research system is part of a broader national science, technology and innovation system, it is higher education institutions that must give effect to the interlocking of scholarly endeavour and new knowledge production.
I like the way Lord Mandelson put it in a recent speech:
“I’ve argued that in a modern economy and society universities are a social trust. They have three great roles: passing on existing knowledge, generating new knowledge, and helping ensure that new knowledge underwrites our collective prosperity wherever possible. I believe that the way we enable and equip our universities to do these things will say more about how we understand the unique challenges of prospering in a globalised economy and culture at the start of the third millennium than almost anything else a government can do.”
Our universities are no longer ivory towers remote from reality.
There has been a distinct move away from basic and fundamental research towards strategic, applied and product related research. Instead of this being considered as a system weakness, the relative strength of each form of research combines to illustrate the capacity of the higher education system.
At the same time, the public higher education system has been restructured and the success of its transformation will in large part be gauged by the extent to which universities succeed in consolidating a differentiated institutional landscape, where the impact and contribution to research, knowledge production and intellectual capital development needs to be greater than the sum of its individual parts.
In this regard, it is important that we build a public environment supportive of its higher education institutions an affirming culture that succeeds in bringing new talent into our universities because we recognise that higher education must, in addition to its responsiveness to urgent national, regional and global priorities, also regenerate its own intellectual capital.
I noticed from the ASSAf proposal that the main report of this study will contain the first ever national study on the nature, goals, character, scope, sources, motives, quality, depth, organisation, consequences, impact, funding, drivers, capacity and impact of postgraduate education in general and doctoral education in particular for South African society and economy.
I trust that this study will live up to its promise and address the need to accelerate and sustain economic growth in our country.
The study offers, I hope, advice on some critical challenges related to PhDs - such as how do we increase the contribution of young South Africans in scholarly writings, how to address the issue of equity mainly for increasing women participation in scarce skills areas and to redress the inequalities encouraged by the past regime.
I would like to close by congratulating ASSAf for taking this bold step to lead such an important initiative and NRF for providing funding.
Most importantly, I would like to thank Professor Jonathan Jansen and his team for taking a lead in this study. I am eagerly waiting for your recommendations which I will discuss with my colleagues in the cabinet.
Issued by: Department of Science and Technology
5 October 2009
Source: Department of Science and Technology (http://www.dst.gov.za/)
