Date: 27/09/2004
Source: Ministry of Science and Technology
Title: M Mangena: Launch of HSRC Annual Report
ADDRESS BY THE MINISTER OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, MR MOSBUDI MANGENA, AT THE LAUNCH OF THE HSRC ANNUAL REPORT, Pretoria, 27 September 2004
President of the HSRC, Dr Mark Orkin;
Chairperson of the HSRC Council, Prof Jake Gerwel; HSRC Council members;
Excellencies and other diplomatic colleagues;
CEOs and representatives of Science Councils;
Colleagues from Higher Learning Institutions and Research Organisations;
HSRC partner representatives;
Honourable Guests; and
Ladies and Gentlemen
Like other science councils in South Africa, the HSRC has the interest and excitement of working at the intersection of three important and related areas.
First, is the importance of research in advancing social and economic development. Second, is the distinctive set of challenges which development has to address in South Africa, rooted in our apartheid past, or exacerbated by it. And third, is the requisite transformation of our institutions, including science councils, to apply research to tackle our development challenges.
All three areas draw heavily on the insights of the social sciences. The HSRC - itself and in collaboration with other research entities - has a crucial role to play in promoting the contribution of the science system to the imperatives of transformation in South Africa.
Let me touch on the areas in turn. The contribution of research to transformation through socio-economic development is the central mandate of the Minister of Science and Technology.
The broad picture is well known, especially for developed countries. The economically leading nations are those that have invested heavily in science, and also attended to what we call innovation: the concerted application of scientific findings in technological applications.
But technology is not only "high-tech". In order to improve our nation's quality of life, it is as important for our rural families to utilise labour-intensive devices to improve the performance of their farming outputs, as it is for our industries to manufacture television decoders for export.
It is clear though that the detailed picture of the relationship between S&T, and broadly conceived socio-economic development is less clearly understood. My Department has grappled with this phenomenon, which has resulted in the production of the 2002 National R&D Strategy.
The strategy identifies deficiencies within our science system such as the "innovation chasm", and the shortfall in the production of skilled researchers from all sectors of our population. To address these deficiencies, the R&D strategy proposes several "missions". These are areas in which we believe investment in R&D will greatly contribute towards addressing South Africa's development challenges. The strategy also proposes institutional mechanisms by which these missions may be advanced such as networked centres of excellence among researchers.
To implement such a strategy demands detailed knowledge of the features and dynamics of the science system and its people. And I am pleased to report a particular "innovation" by which the DST is achieving this knowledge.
A couple of years ago, the DST outsourced the conducting of the periodic national R&D survey to the HSRC's Knowledge Management programme. The survey covered what research is being done, where, by whom, and with what resources. The results have been important and surprising, and they are being factored into our policies.
On the basis of this success, the DST has granted the HSRC a ring-fenced grant of R4, 5m per year for three-years to set up a Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators. The Centre will conduct the surveys of the science sector using standard international methodologies. Our plan is to use it to help us build this capacity in other countries so that NEPAD will gradually acquire a better understanding of the nature of science systems across the continent.
We need this information to guide our efforts in attracting young people, particularly young women and blacks, into careers of science, engineering and technology. Our country's scientific population is aging rapidly, and we must be able to replace it as it retires. The HSRC study into the mobility of scientific persons, conducted for the National Advisory Council on Innovation, has made important insights. Your new Gender Unit is also preparing to collaborate with the DST on this issue.
At the DST we are also trying to address the question of lack of knowledge about technology for development for developing countries. This area has been better researched in the East than in Africa. The topic accordingly comprises the fifth "mission" of the R&D strategy. We were delighted that the HSRC volunteered to team up with the CSIR and a consortium of researchers from historically disadvantaged universities to take a first look at this issue.
The DST's Technology for Poverty Reduction Sub-Programme is interested in such research in order to fulfil its mandate of transferring technological capabilities to communities in agro-processing, production of high value crops, renewable energies, mining initiatives, and medicinal plant production. Moreover, the skills and training provided in these projects are partly a vehicle for empowerment, and partly instruments for driving the Integrated Sustainable Development Programme and Urban Renewal Programme. The aim is to have projects that are sustainable and could be developed into small and medium enterprises.
The second area that I identified at the outset concerns the role of social science, and particularly the role of the HSRC's brand of policy-relevant enquiry in tackling our distinctive development challenges. Our science councils thrive through not regarding these as lists of depressing problems, but as processes to be analysed, and used by government as the basis for developing policies and programmes.
The restructuring of the HSRC's research programmes to align with these challenges in order to allow interdisciplinary team-based research has been very helpful in this regard. Any plausible government policies to tackle unemployment would inevitably involve interactions between at least half a dozen government departments, including the DST. It is a daunting task to research the foundations for sound policies through such intricate intersections.
In order to deal with these complexities, the DST enlisted the HSRC's support through an earlier three-year ring-fenced grant, which was used to establish your research programme in Human Resources Development. From the outset, the programme was created to function in an interdisciplinary fashion, and to collaborate with other programmes inside and outside the HSRC that deal with economic policy, youth, and rural development.
The results of its work are impressive. There is now a massive directory, several associated books, journal articles, and the pioneering HRD Data Warehouse, which opens access to basic information and associated commentary to practitioners within and outside government. This data provides relevant and improved information, and analysis infrastructure to support government and private-sector decision-making on unemployment, and related issues such as education, health, and juvenile crime. It provides a "lens" which throws government priorities into sharp focus. One HSRC publication has a clever title, Changing Class, which lately caught my attention, given my own special interest in education.
My educational curiosity is also anxiously awaiting the next round of results from the international study on Maths and Science education in which the HSRC participates every few years. I understand that the programme on Assessment Technology and Educational Evaluation is conceiving studies on the role of language in the development of mathematical skills, which will throw light on the debate on mother-tongue instruction policies.
No discourse on our challenges, no matter how brief, can afford to ignore the devastating effects of HIV and AIDS. The DST's particular concern in this regard is the loss of skills, knowledge and experience, which threaten the sustainability of any equity gains made in education and training during the post-apartheid era.
Our current initiatives in human capital development to redress the skills shortage are likely to come under further stress if the he spread of this pandemic cannot be contained. That is why your Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health research programme has been charged specifically with surveying the impact of HIV and AIDS on the educational system. It is encouraging that you are collaborating across the continent, so that there will be sufficient coverage and scale to the research.
I have been unavoidably selective in reflecting on the transformation role played by the HSRC's research programmes. The others are interestingly presented in the Annual Report. The diversity of activities, in the two hundred and fifty projects that are under way at any time, is quite astonishing.
The third area I have mentioned is the recent transformation of the HSRC itself, to enable it to make its contributions in the ways I have alluded to. I learn that every year the CEO bombards you with graphs and charts - an inevitable legacy from his days as the national statistician. But I will be very brief.
I recently met the outgoing Council at its last meeting. I wish to congratulate it and its staff on their considerable achievement in the last five years, which was thoroughly overviewed last year in the five-yearly Institutional Review of the HSRC. When I met the Council, I opened discussions on a number of the important issues in the Review as they affect all the science councils in different ways. I am glad that the HSRC has set up task teams to take forward the recommendations mentioned in the Review.
We recognise that the DST has steadily encouraged councils to achieve earnings from research in order to grow. But does this pressure threaten the longer-term research, which science councils should sustain? Does this pressure to make earnings perhaps not also limit the access to scientific research by marginalised communities in South Africa?
In doing research whose agenda is aligned to government needs, is the HSRC sometimes too critical to be useful or, as one member of your Council wondered, sometimes not critical enough?
How structured and enduring are your relationships with your users? And with universities and technikons, which are often your partners and sometimes your competitors?
These questions are not meant to criticise, but to stimulate ongoing discussion on the soundness of the overall science system, and the complementary relations among the large and vital institutions that comprise it, which lie at the heart of my responsibilities. It is only when relationships among institutions flourish can they make the required scientific contribution to transformation and development encapsulated in my opening remarks. Today's event is a heartening indication that we are doing quite well. I certainly look forward to our fruitful working together during my term.
It is now my pleasure to launch the HRSC Annual Report.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Science and Technology
27 September 2004
Source: Ministry of Science and Technology
Title: M Mangena: Launch of HSRC Annual Report
ADDRESS BY THE MINISTER OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, MR MOSBUDI MANGENA, AT THE LAUNCH OF THE HSRC ANNUAL REPORT, Pretoria, 27 September 2004
President of the HSRC, Dr Mark Orkin;
Chairperson of the HSRC Council, Prof Jake Gerwel; HSRC Council members;
Excellencies and other diplomatic colleagues;
CEOs and representatives of Science Councils;
Colleagues from Higher Learning Institutions and Research Organisations;
HSRC partner representatives;
Honourable Guests; and
Ladies and Gentlemen
Like other science councils in South Africa, the HSRC has the interest and excitement of working at the intersection of three important and related areas.
First, is the importance of research in advancing social and economic development. Second, is the distinctive set of challenges which development has to address in South Africa, rooted in our apartheid past, or exacerbated by it. And third, is the requisite transformation of our institutions, including science councils, to apply research to tackle our development challenges.
All three areas draw heavily on the insights of the social sciences. The HSRC - itself and in collaboration with other research entities - has a crucial role to play in promoting the contribution of the science system to the imperatives of transformation in South Africa.
Let me touch on the areas in turn. The contribution of research to transformation through socio-economic development is the central mandate of the Minister of Science and Technology.
The broad picture is well known, especially for developed countries. The economically leading nations are those that have invested heavily in science, and also attended to what we call innovation: the concerted application of scientific findings in technological applications.
But technology is not only "high-tech". In order to improve our nation's quality of life, it is as important for our rural families to utilise labour-intensive devices to improve the performance of their farming outputs, as it is for our industries to manufacture television decoders for export.
It is clear though that the detailed picture of the relationship between S&T, and broadly conceived socio-economic development is less clearly understood. My Department has grappled with this phenomenon, which has resulted in the production of the 2002 National R&D Strategy.
The strategy identifies deficiencies within our science system such as the "innovation chasm", and the shortfall in the production of skilled researchers from all sectors of our population. To address these deficiencies, the R&D strategy proposes several "missions". These are areas in which we believe investment in R&D will greatly contribute towards addressing South Africa's development challenges. The strategy also proposes institutional mechanisms by which these missions may be advanced such as networked centres of excellence among researchers.
To implement such a strategy demands detailed knowledge of the features and dynamics of the science system and its people. And I am pleased to report a particular "innovation" by which the DST is achieving this knowledge.
A couple of years ago, the DST outsourced the conducting of the periodic national R&D survey to the HSRC's Knowledge Management programme. The survey covered what research is being done, where, by whom, and with what resources. The results have been important and surprising, and they are being factored into our policies.
On the basis of this success, the DST has granted the HSRC a ring-fenced grant of R4, 5m per year for three-years to set up a Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators. The Centre will conduct the surveys of the science sector using standard international methodologies. Our plan is to use it to help us build this capacity in other countries so that NEPAD will gradually acquire a better understanding of the nature of science systems across the continent.
We need this information to guide our efforts in attracting young people, particularly young women and blacks, into careers of science, engineering and technology. Our country's scientific population is aging rapidly, and we must be able to replace it as it retires. The HSRC study into the mobility of scientific persons, conducted for the National Advisory Council on Innovation, has made important insights. Your new Gender Unit is also preparing to collaborate with the DST on this issue.
At the DST we are also trying to address the question of lack of knowledge about technology for development for developing countries. This area has been better researched in the East than in Africa. The topic accordingly comprises the fifth "mission" of the R&D strategy. We were delighted that the HSRC volunteered to team up with the CSIR and a consortium of researchers from historically disadvantaged universities to take a first look at this issue.
The DST's Technology for Poverty Reduction Sub-Programme is interested in such research in order to fulfil its mandate of transferring technological capabilities to communities in agro-processing, production of high value crops, renewable energies, mining initiatives, and medicinal plant production. Moreover, the skills and training provided in these projects are partly a vehicle for empowerment, and partly instruments for driving the Integrated Sustainable Development Programme and Urban Renewal Programme. The aim is to have projects that are sustainable and could be developed into small and medium enterprises.
The second area that I identified at the outset concerns the role of social science, and particularly the role of the HSRC's brand of policy-relevant enquiry in tackling our distinctive development challenges. Our science councils thrive through not regarding these as lists of depressing problems, but as processes to be analysed, and used by government as the basis for developing policies and programmes.
The restructuring of the HSRC's research programmes to align with these challenges in order to allow interdisciplinary team-based research has been very helpful in this regard. Any plausible government policies to tackle unemployment would inevitably involve interactions between at least half a dozen government departments, including the DST. It is a daunting task to research the foundations for sound policies through such intricate intersections.
In order to deal with these complexities, the DST enlisted the HSRC's support through an earlier three-year ring-fenced grant, which was used to establish your research programme in Human Resources Development. From the outset, the programme was created to function in an interdisciplinary fashion, and to collaborate with other programmes inside and outside the HSRC that deal with economic policy, youth, and rural development.
The results of its work are impressive. There is now a massive directory, several associated books, journal articles, and the pioneering HRD Data Warehouse, which opens access to basic information and associated commentary to practitioners within and outside government. This data provides relevant and improved information, and analysis infrastructure to support government and private-sector decision-making on unemployment, and related issues such as education, health, and juvenile crime. It provides a "lens" which throws government priorities into sharp focus. One HSRC publication has a clever title, Changing Class, which lately caught my attention, given my own special interest in education.
My educational curiosity is also anxiously awaiting the next round of results from the international study on Maths and Science education in which the HSRC participates every few years. I understand that the programme on Assessment Technology and Educational Evaluation is conceiving studies on the role of language in the development of mathematical skills, which will throw light on the debate on mother-tongue instruction policies.
No discourse on our challenges, no matter how brief, can afford to ignore the devastating effects of HIV and AIDS. The DST's particular concern in this regard is the loss of skills, knowledge and experience, which threaten the sustainability of any equity gains made in education and training during the post-apartheid era.
Our current initiatives in human capital development to redress the skills shortage are likely to come under further stress if the he spread of this pandemic cannot be contained. That is why your Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health research programme has been charged specifically with surveying the impact of HIV and AIDS on the educational system. It is encouraging that you are collaborating across the continent, so that there will be sufficient coverage and scale to the research.
I have been unavoidably selective in reflecting on the transformation role played by the HSRC's research programmes. The others are interestingly presented in the Annual Report. The diversity of activities, in the two hundred and fifty projects that are under way at any time, is quite astonishing.
The third area I have mentioned is the recent transformation of the HSRC itself, to enable it to make its contributions in the ways I have alluded to. I learn that every year the CEO bombards you with graphs and charts - an inevitable legacy from his days as the national statistician. But I will be very brief.
I recently met the outgoing Council at its last meeting. I wish to congratulate it and its staff on their considerable achievement in the last five years, which was thoroughly overviewed last year in the five-yearly Institutional Review of the HSRC. When I met the Council, I opened discussions on a number of the important issues in the Review as they affect all the science councils in different ways. I am glad that the HSRC has set up task teams to take forward the recommendations mentioned in the Review.
We recognise that the DST has steadily encouraged councils to achieve earnings from research in order to grow. But does this pressure threaten the longer-term research, which science councils should sustain? Does this pressure to make earnings perhaps not also limit the access to scientific research by marginalised communities in South Africa?
In doing research whose agenda is aligned to government needs, is the HSRC sometimes too critical to be useful or, as one member of your Council wondered, sometimes not critical enough?
How structured and enduring are your relationships with your users? And with universities and technikons, which are often your partners and sometimes your competitors?
These questions are not meant to criticise, but to stimulate ongoing discussion on the soundness of the overall science system, and the complementary relations among the large and vital institutions that comprise it, which lie at the heart of my responsibilities. It is only when relationships among institutions flourish can they make the required scientific contribution to transformation and development encapsulated in my opening remarks. Today's event is a heartening indication that we are doing quite well. I certainly look forward to our fruitful working together during my term.
It is now my pleasure to launch the HRSC Annual Report.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Science and Technology
27 September 2004
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