South-African-STI-Indicators-2014

In developing this publication, NACI draws from the 2002 National R&D Strategy (indicators logic model framework) which specifically identified indicators for an assessment of the health of the national system of innovation (NSI) and the tracking thereof over time as a basis for performance measurement.The recently published
Ministerial Review Report requires a strong evidence based and data driven approach in assessing the NSI. Therefore progress in improving the functioning of the NSI depends on the availability, collation, maintenance (and even analysis) of both quantitative and qualitative STI indicators.
This repor t is aimed at providing core South African science, technology and innovation indicators with a view to assessing the performance of the NSI and includes extensive data obtained from a wide spectrum of local and international data sources. Data included in this publication mostly cover the past ten years
(2004 – 2013) in order to allow for a proper trend analysis over a period of time.
Each year we strive to improve this publication so that it may continue to be more useful. In the last financial year (2013/14) NACI under took a study that identified gaps in available indicators used in the assessment of the NSI. Some of the new indicators identified in this study are innovation networks, foreign direct investment networks and higher education system resources. In response to this study and taking into consideration the STI policy landscape the following are some of the new indicators included in this publication: 1) Dinaledi Schools data; 2) Matriculation data for Physical Science; 3) data on different types of scientific publications; 4) information on knowledge networks, i.e. collaborations; and 5) information on the mobility of South African researchers.