Programme Director, Professor Albert Modi;
President of the Academy of Science of South Africa, Prof. Robin Crewe; President of the National Research Foundation, Prof. Albert van Jaarsveld; Executive Officer of the Academy of Science of South Africa, Prof. Roseanne Diab; ASSAf council members;
Academics, researchers, scientists, and students;
It is truly my pleasure to be afforded the opportunity to address you this evening at the launch of this new academy, the South African Young Academy of Science (SAYAS), under the auspices of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASAF).
South Africa has experienced enormous changes over the past 17 years. The birth new democratic order in 1994 was soon followed by the introduction of a number of new policies and new laws, premised on principles of justice and equity. On the one hand it marked the arrival point of Mandela’s famous “Long Walk to Freedom”, and at the same time it was the beginning of the next leg of the journey - translating political freedom into jobs and economic opportunities, and shaping a society that offers lives of dignity to all our citizens.
From the outset this democratic government had to deal with the legacy of apartheid and the challenge of integrating South Africa into what was previously a largely hostile world. The new policies and programmes were designed to fulfill the dream of a new order, the creation of a non-racial, non-sexist society, with our people freed from the burdens of oppression, of guilt, of homelessness, landlessness and illiteracy.
Therefore, since 1994, the contract between government and the people has been geared towards pursuing the deepening of democracy and the implementation of programmes to restore the lives and dignity of our people. While we should be quite open and honest about the mistakes we have made, and the fact that we have at times gone astray, we must never lose sight of the vision, and the inspiring and selfless leadership of people like Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo, Albertina Sisulu, Helen Joseph and our beloved icon, Nelson Mandela.
We are truly blessed to have had heroes and leaders of this calibre to take us out of apartheid and into this young, vibrant democracy that is ours. We owe it to these great leaders, and the millions of South Africans who made such great sacrifices to bring us our freedom, and to build on the foundation they have laid, and to take our country to the great heights that we are capable of achieving.
Today, our struggle is largely focused on the pressing socio-economic issues of the day, as highlighted in our government’s Medium Term Strategic Framework.
Of course, we have come a long way towards improving people’s lives:
- In 1994, only 62% of households had access to running water; by 2010, more than 90% of households had access to running water.
- In 1994, only 50% of households had access to decent sanitation; by 2010, 80% of households had access to decent sanitation.
- In 1994, only 51% of households had access to electricity; by 2010, 75% of households had access to electricity.
But we still have a long way to go to ensure that all our citizens enjoy the fruits of our freedom.
We will never be able to address these challenges without the help of science, engineering and technology. To use just one example - research in water at the University of Stellenbosch recently led to the development of the nano-tea bag, which is "a novel way of purifying water on a small scale using a sachet like a tea bag, but instead of imparting flavour to the water, the bag absorbs toxins, filters out and kills bacteria, and cleans the water".
This technology has huge potential in helping to purify water in rural areas, where millions of people are still collecting water from contaminated streams or pools.
It almost goes without saying that the participation of young scientists in our country's efforts to address socio-economic issues and in our move towards a knowledge-based economy is absolutely essential. Yet, there seem to be very few countries in the world that have coordinated forums of the kind that we are launching today, to represent the voices of young scientists.
The simple fact of the matter is that young scientists represent the future of our country’s science and technology development. Their inclusion from an early stage in the process of building an effective and dynamic National System of Innovation is critical.
SAYAS is intended, firstly, to facilitate and enhance the participation of young scientists in the mainstream of research and development across all disciplines, and, secondly, to provide young scientists with the opportunity to use their knowledge to address South Africa’s socio-economic challenges.
I am confident that SAYAS will be one of the crucial platforms that will continually motivate, mentor and produce other young scientists that will enable us to reach our country’s full human capital development potential. It is common knowledge that we have an ageing cohort of established researchers. The good news is that we many outstanding researchers who, if the opportunities are created, can impart their skills and experience on a talented new crop of young scientists. SAYAS, combined with the various initiatives I have mentioned, creates the opportunity to do just that.
As a membership-based organisation, the key intellectual resources of ASSAf reside in its 357 members, the majority of whom are staff members of the four research-intensive universities, namely the Universities of Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal, Pretoria and the Witwatersrand. SAYAS provides the ideal platform for increasing the membership of ASSAf, and expanding its spread.
Similar to ASSAf, SAYAS membership will constitute exceptional scientists, and this has the advantage of increasing the number of South African scientists publishing in relevant Institute for Scientific Information journals. Furthermore, SAYAS will facilitate the exchange of best practices among young scientists across disciplines, and could further expand the opportunities for career development of young scientists in the country.
We can therefore all feel rightfully proud today to be launching a progressive and dynamic forum that will propel South Africa’s young scientists to fully participate in local and internationally relevant research and development agendas.
It is our objective, as the department of Science and Technology, to increase research and development investment so that the current and new cohort of young scientists can be increased and supported. Investment in young scientists takes a substantial slice of the department’s budget and continues to be a priority. The department looks at human capital development investment in three categories, namely –
- a young generation of new researchers;
- emerging researchers, and
- established researchers.
In the area focusing on the new generation of researchers, an additional R53 million was made available to the National Research Foundation in the 2010/2011 financial year, to increase the core-funded bursary values. Allocations were made in three categories, namely:
- an increase in overall bursary values;
- needs-based top-ups; and
- additional free-standing bursaries.
We would like to use this occasion of the SAYAS launch to reaffirm our commitment to growing the pool of active and productive researchers who are able to contribute to our National System of Innovation. We will continue to provide more honours bursaries, more support for masters and doctoral students, and more postdoctoral fellowships. We will also increase research grants to young scientists holding academic or researcher’s positions at our public research institutions.
The recent South African PhD Study highlighted inadequate supervisory capacity in our country as a bottleneck to producing PhDs. The department’s announcement on the establishment of a further 62 new research chairs under the South African Research Chairs Initiative should go a long way towards easing the supervisory bottleneck and providing our young researchers with valuable exposure to mentoring by world class scientists and researchers.
I therefore take this opportunity to challenge the young scientists’ brigade present here today to use their love and knowledge of science to inspire young people to choose science, engineering and technology as first choice careers.
Programme director, ladies and gentlemen, it is my honour and pleasure to declare that SAYAS is now officially launched as our proud national forum for young scientists to fully soar as eagles within the National System of Innovation. So it's no longer: roar young lions, roar, it's soar young eagles, soar!
Thank you.
