The Science and Technology

Ministerial Review Report

Presentation to: Portfolio Committee

06 June 2012

Presented by: Professor Wieland Gevers

Remit (1)

The purpose of the Ministerial Committeewas to:

• review the science, technology and innovation landscape and its readiness to meet the needs of the country;

• appraise the degree to which the country is making optimal use of its existing strengths;

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Remit (II)

• assess the degree to which the country is well positioned to respond rapidly to a changing global context and meet the needs of the country in the coming ten to thirty years.

The study was to provide the nation with an understanding of what is being achieved in and by the National System of Innovation (NSI).

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Phase One

• Phase one comprised scrutiny of the relevant policy framework established since the adoption of the White Paper on Science and Technology in 1996, and evaluation of the systemic response to the external review of the South African National System of Innovation (NSI) conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2006/2007.

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Phase Two

• Phase Two focused on the development of recommendations for a greatly enhanced NSI.

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Governance of the NSI (I)

Assessment:

• DST achievements reviewed – much that is positive.

• Lack of common understanding across govt. departments; poor cooperation; many sectoral S&T services under-performing.

• Failure of ‘New Strategic Management Model’ for SETIs.

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Governance of the NSI (II)

• Limited NACI role.• ‘Supply-side’ emphasis: little emphasis

on ‘demand-side’.• Low systemic ‘NSI-coherence’ between

govt., business, higher education, civil society : little systemic planning in NSI.

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Governance of the NSI (III)

Recommendation 1: Establish a compact (15–20 person) statutory National Council on Research and Innovation (NCRI); chaired by Dep. President; all significant sectors involved; oversight of system.

Recommendation 2: Establish a Unitary Research and Innovation Vote.

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Governance of the NSI (IV)

Recommendation 3: Fully systemic NSI-

coordinating role for DST.Recommendation 4: Transform the present National Council on Innovation (NACI) into a new statutory Office for Research and Innovation Policy (ORIP). Recommendation 5: Establish three ‘core NSI nexuses’ by written agreements.

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Governance of the NSI (V)

Recommendation 6: Broaden modes of public grant-making: participatory sectoral funds’.Recommendation 7: Review, re-think and

integrate the ‘Science Council’ and the government S&T services system.

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The enabling environment for NSI (I)Assessment:• Deep-seated gap between business and

government (too little joint participation, decision-making, benefit-sharing, etc).

• Tax incentive schemes under-subscribed.

• Innovation survey ‘hides’ low patenting and international impact of business innovation.

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The enabling environment for NSI (II)

• Falling contribution of business to HE and Science Council R&D (cp. USA) = ‘knowledge transfer gap”.

• Technology balance-of-payments poor.• THRIP, SPII positive, but slow ‘multi-

helix’ formation.• NSI not yet open and ‘permeable’

enough.• Despite some good examples, public

service innovation weak. 11

The enabling environment for NSI (III)Recommendation 8: Systematic efforts should be made to bring industry and government closer together, and to strengthen the response of the system to demand signals from business and industry, on the one hand, and social spheres, on the other.

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The enabling environment for NSI (IV)Recommendation 9: The effective participation of the private sector should be structured into all levels of the system.

Recommendation 10: Immigration policies and intellectual property regimes need to enhance the openness of the NSI.

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The enabling environment for NSI (V)Recommendation 12: An explicit Strategy should be developed for the advancement of social innovation within NSI.

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The Human Capital and Infrastructure (I)

Assessment

• Multiple systemic ‘pipeline jams’, refractory to action….

• Massive unresolved schooling issues

• Deficits in FET, vocational training (Green Paper)….

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The Human Capital and Infrastructure (II)

Assessment cont.

• HE issues: low participation +through-

put rates at both under- and postgraduate levels, HEQF delays, etc.

• Infrastructure issues………..physical and ICT.

• National research facilities’ system in disarray.

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The Human Capital and Infrastructure (III)

Recommendation 13: In order to meet the human resource development requirements of a knowledge economy, a planned, concerted, well-resourced and sustained programme of action in all areas of human capital development should be undertaken by all the relevant policy-makers and performers.

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The Human Capital and Infrastructure (IV)

• Teaching at all levels should be declared an essential public service within labour and other legislation and relevant regulations.

(NB: Many other specific recommendations not listed here – too little time……)

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The Human Capital and Infrastructure (IV)

Recommendation 14: Establish and

roll out an ‘Infrastructure Roadmap for

South Africa’.

Recommendation 15: Constitute a

National Advisory Panel on

Cyber-infrastructure’.

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Monitoring and Evaluation (I)

Assessment:

• Progress in improving the functioning of the NSI is currently still hampered by absence of an assigned responsibility for ensuring the availability, collation, maintenance (and even analysis) of the STI indicators (quantitative and qualitative) + M&E and planning of NSI.

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Monitoring and Evaluation (II)

Assessment cont.

• No entity currently has the capability to do system mapping, analysis, building, steerage, evaluation, learning and foresight for the NSI.

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Monitoring and Evaluation (III)

• Recommendation 16: ORIP should be a centralised facility to serve as a repository of evaluation information on the NSI, and an expert site for its distillation and distribution to inform strategy and steerage at the highest levels and more broadly.

• Attention to foresight studies, as well as carefully designed social fabric studies.

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Financing the NSI (I)

Assessment:Comparison of the 2008–2009 R&D expendituredata with those for 2007–2008 shows anincrease in total ‘real’ spend of only 1.3%, whilethe total number of researchers and R&Dpersonnel has generally been static, andactually fell when expressed as a percentage ofthe total employment in the country, to only 1.4researchers per 1000 persons employed.

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Financing the NSI (II)

Assessment cont.• The current incentive schemes are

laudably investing about R600 million of government money in innovation projects of business/industry, most of it actually spent in HEIs and science councils.

• The tax benefit for business R&D activity that meets set criteria is being taken up too slowly.

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Financing the NSI (III)

Recommendations 17, 18 and 19• Increase public resourcing of HE R&D

(using performance as key criterion).• Encourage and incentivise

business/industry to increase its R&D expenditure

• The incentive schemes offered by the dti and TIA/DST should be expanded.

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Financing the NSI (IV)

Recommendation 20: Encourage government departments to improve service delivery through RDI, including the effective use of the annual survey of government expenditure on science and technology activities, to draw up prospective expenditure plans annually for such activities.

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Way Forward

• Set up Internal Working Committee to:– Consider the Report and its recommendations

carefully;– Manage and process public comments, and;– Formulate advice and draft implementation

plan.

• Return to Cabinet with draft Implementation Plan in August.

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Conclusion….

DankieEnkosi

Ha khensaRe a lebogaRo livhuwa Siyabonga

Siyathokoza Thank you!

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