DST Research and Innovation Landscape

The mandate given to the Ministerial Review Committee has been a challenging one for a number of reasons, not least because of the complexity of the object of study. In asserting the inclusive definition of the National System of Innovation (NSI) (rather than a restricted definition), the Committee set itself the task of appraising, and making recommendations on, a very extensive landscape of human endeavour, marked by widely differing territories and strongly divergent fields of practice.
The Committee was conscious of the prior efforts of numerous reviews and evaluations that recommended significant NSI organisational and structural changes, only to see things remain as they were. Some of our advice may therefore carry echoes of previous recommendations, but now with measures that are intended to achieve the policy effects that we seek for the system.
We believe that this report provides fresh reflection on the issues and brings into discussion a range of considerations not assembled in this way before. We are aware of important dimensions that deserve further attention, however, either because their salience has been illustrated in the report or because the limitations of time and resources have not permitted their inclusion.