Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators Reports

The introduction of the National Research and Development (R&D) Strategy in 2002represented a turning point in South Africa’s approach to the role of women in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET). In the R&D Strategy the government points to the underrepresentation of women within the SET workforce. This is exacerbated by the lack of access that women – especially from marginalised and rural areas – have to the benefits of SET. The picture gets gloomier, with some disconcerting statistics that indicate that the number of scientific publications produced by women in South Africa has increased only marginally from 16% in 1990 to 19% in 2001. Women account for 52% of our population but are not proportionately represented in academia or industry. This shows how we are ignoring this valuable national resource. The South African Reference Group on Women in Science and Technology (SARG), which has been established in response to the aims outlined in the R&D Strategy. SARG was proposed as a group of local and international stakeholders andrepresentatives of organisations with an interest in the progress of women in science, who will advise the Minister of Science and Technology on relevantissues. The group was established in March 2003 as a sub-committee of the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI). The main objective of SARG is to make recommendations to public policy-makers topromote gender mainstreaming in the related spheres of SET and Innovation. This involves building an understanding and recognising the value of the varying and equally potent contributions that women and men can make to society in the SETsphere, in particular to building a stronger and more competitive NSI.SARG aims to do this by:• raising a gender equality perspective ..

In mid-2020, the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation requested the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI) to provide an assessment of the state of innovation in technical vocational education and training (TVET) colleges. The object of the study was the set of 50 TVET colleges and their stakeholders. The associated investigation comprised deskwork, interviews and an online survey conducted over an eight-month period.  In essence, the study reveals a tale of two discourses. On the one hand is the labour market and skills formation, capability and lifelong learning, with the individual at the centre. On the other hand, the study tells the tale of the economics of innovation, with a strong emphasis on the dominant macroeconomic paradigm, with framework conditions that enable private enterprises to flourish. The literature review reflects TVET as a ‘Cinderella’ sector that is not renowned for innovation capacity – let alone exercising the role of an innovation actor – and engagingin a limited amount of innovation activity through industry partnerships. The TVET sector has been essentially considered, and is portrayed as a provider of entry- andmid-level skills to respond to national social and economic development.

The 2019 White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation empowers the National Advisory of Innovation (NACI) to monitor and evaluate South Africa’s national system of innovation (NSI). Consequently, NACI has produced the2023 STI Indicators Report based on NACI’s NSI monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework. The report serves to provide “isibuko” or “mirror” the NSI.The report offers an opportunity for NSI actors to pause and reflect about the state of and knowledge about the NSI through the data and information it provides. It deliberately offers little or no interpretation and recommendations.Complementary studies are being encouraged to deepen understanding and interpretation of the evidence contained in the report.

Poverty and unemployment remain South Africa’s main challenges, even with thevigorous deployment of many government poverty alleviation policies and programmes (see Section 2). Continued existence of these challenges will make the South African government fall short of its Millenium Development goal to reduce poverty and unemployment by half by 2014. The challenges prompted the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI), through its Innovation for Development (INNO4DEV) subcommittee, to commission this study.The study was initially planned as a survey of all existing government povertyalleviation programmes. It was soon realized that this was a huge and complextask, and accordingly the scope of work was narrowed down to the effectivenessof the Department of Science and Technology’s (DST) Science and Technologyfor Social Impact (STSI) programme, which comprises the Sustainable Livelihoodsand Sustainable Human Settlements sub-programmes. The core mandate of thesesub-programmes is to promote the development and use of science, engineeringand technology (SET) in introducing and demonstrating innovative social solutionsthat have potential to contribute to poverty reduction.  The objectives of the study were to: Identify existing government poverty alleviation programmes and policies witha special focus on the DST’s STSI programme and then evaluate the effectiveness of the programme in terms of successes and challenges, as well as reasons thereof. Identify linkages and institutional arrangements between DST and other government departments. Formulate high level recommendations aimed at coordinating poverty alleviation programmes and enhancing their social impact.

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 publishedMinisterial 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. 

The National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI) annually produces the South African Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Indicators Report. The report provides an analysis of the state of STI in South Africa and includes indicators that are critical in the monitoring and evaluation of the South African National System of Innovation (NSI) and its impact and/or contribution towards achieving the country’sset national objectives. In order to adjust timelines and ensure that the publication date of the report is in line with the release date, the current report is titled the 2019 South African STI Indicators Report (instead of the 2018 report). This change and many other ongoingchanges take place as part of NACI’s continuous efforts to improve the report so that it remains relevant to its stakeholders. This is also done in response to stakeholder engagement carried out as part of enhancing the report.

The conceptual framework for the 2021 South African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators Report (Figure 1.1) utilises the revised South African Innovation Scorecard framework. This is adapted from the European Innovation Scoreboard.  The Framework Conditions replaces the Enablers in the previous framework, in which the STI funding and support component is replaced by the Innovation-Friendly Environment (broadband penetration and entrepreneurship). A newpillar of Investment brings together STI finance and support, and firm investment. A main factor behind the adoption of this new framework is the separation of investment and innovation activities, hence the inclusion of another new pillar, Innovation Activities. The Impacts pillar was previously named STI Outputs. The linkages are not incorporated as part of the 2021 report and will be included in future. 

The indicators contained in this booklet are useful in the assessment of both the state of the national system of innovation (NSI) and the impact of key NSI policies and strategies. Reference to key indicators is a vital contributor to various debates in policy formulation and thereby to the promotion of evidence-based policy decisions.The indicators cover a ten-year period spanning 2003 to 2012. This is a very important period for the NSI, following the inception of the National Research and Development Strategy (NRDS). Coincidentally, most of the targets of the NRDS were set for 2012.The indicators contained in this booklet are therefore critical in assessing the impact of this strategy on South African knowledge generation capacity and the progress achieved in positioning science-based technology to improve quality of life and economic growth. In addition, it is important to monitor these indicators as we are halfway through the Ten Year Innovation Plan (TYIP), which is key in positioning South Africa as a knowledge-based economy. Additions to this booklet include a brief background on relevant innovation policies and strategies as well as commentary on data. In order to give the indicators some scale of comparison, we benchmark the South African NSI against the BRICS countries and Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. BRICS countries are useful for the comparison of scale-adjusted science, engineering and innovation indicators as these countries share economic and social challenges associated with emerging economies. The three developed countries serve as a benchmark for well-organised innovation systems. 

The adoption of the South African Innovation Scorecard Framework by the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI) in 2016/17 provides a framework for the analysis of the state of science, technology and innovation (STI) in South Africa. This framework (Figure 1.1) categorises STI activities into three components: the public sector’s enabling activities, firm-level innovation activities, and the economic and social outputs of innovation.  The enablers incorporated into this report include STI human capital, knowledge generation, and STI funding and support. One of the key policy questions concerns the slow pace of absorption of black graduate researchers into the private sector. This report shows that there is a low supply of doctoral qualifications for females in disciplines such as engineering, mathematics and statistics, and computer and information sciences. Only 18% of doctoral degrees in engineering were awarded to female graduates in 2015. In terms of race, there is a limited supply of black doctoral graduates in disciplines such as life sciences and engineering. The recommendation for strengthening research capacity at historically disadvantaged institutions (HDIs) partly addresses this high-end skills supply challenge.

Gender equality is one of the core ideals preserved in the Bill of Rights of the South African Constitution (1993). The government has, therefore, adopted the approach of ‘mainstreaming gender’ in order to respond to gender inequalities. To do that, the government has established ‘gender desks’ or ‘gender focal points’ within each government department, whose responsibility is to ensure the integration of a gender perspective into all policy and implementation activities. The government has also developed policy and legislation that tagged women as a specific group e.g. Employment Equity legislation. As part of a number of interventions suggested by the National Plan and R&D Strategy to address gender equity challenges, the establishment of the South African Reference Group [SARG] of Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (currently known as the Science, Engineering and Technology for Women [SET4W]) sub-committee of the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI) was proposed. The aim in establishing the sub-committee was and still is to strengthen women-led initiatives in all phases of participation within the Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) sector, from school to career achievement.As a result of the continued significant gender imbalances in the SET sector coupled with little evidence of strategies to address these, in 2008 the SET4W sub-committee commissioned a follow-up study to update the 2004 report entitled Facing the Facts: Women’s Participation in Public Sector Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) in South Africa. Therefore this updated report continues to:•     Benchmark the status of women’s participation in public sector SET•     Inform the activities of SET4W•     Inform planners and policy makers ..

This publication is part of our contribution to building the monitoring, evaluation and learning capability necessary for assessing the health of the National System of Innovation (NSI). Compared to previous publications, the 2015 South African STI Indicators report focuses more on international comparisons against which South Africa can benchmark its progress in innovation. Comparisons are made withcountries such as Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States and the BRIC group of countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China).This benchmarking exercise aims to stimulate debate and identify issues that need to be addressed for South Africa to be a knowledgedriven economy. Other new aspects in this 2015 publication include indicators of South African universities’ performance in knowledge generation, inter-sectoral research collaboration and co-authorships and research prioritisation. It is important to note that although there have been improvements, South Africa still experiences STI data related challenges. In an attempt to address some of these challenges, or initiatives such as the development of an Innovation Scorecard for South Africa and the development of a National Science, Technology and Innovation Information Portal. The reader is reminded that the earlier version of the booklet published in 2014 is still a useful reference in certain instances because it not necessarily repeated in this current version. Without delving into the details, the 2015 STI indicators publication indicates overall progress in some areas and a lack of progress in other areas. For instance, the science, engineering and technology research capacity developmentpipeline and research and development investment as a proportion of the GrossDevelopment Product (GDP) remain serious challenges.