According to the survey of financial and human resource inputs into R&D that the Knowledge Management programme of the HSRC undertook for the department South Africa spent about R7,5-billion, or 0,76% of GDP, on R&D in 2001/2.
This figure represents an improvement in the amount recorded in the 1997/98 R&D survey, which found R&D expenditure of R4,1-billion, or 0,69% of GDP.
The National R&D Strategy aims to double government investment in science and technology by 2005 and achieve a national R&D expenditure target of at least 1% of GDP by the year 2005.
The major fields of South African R&D are engineering sciences (20%); applied sciences and technology (15%); information and communication technologies (12,9%); social sciences and humanities (10,6%); medical and health sciences (10,1%) and agricultural sciences (9,2%).
In terms of classification by socio-economic objectives, most R&D was in the category of manufacturing (14%), followed by R&D for the advancement of knowledge in the natural sciences, technologies and engineering (12,9%) and mineral resources, excluding energy (10,9%).
About 12,4% of R&D was devoted towards society directed categories including health, education and training, and social development based community services.
About 6,1% of R&D effort was in environmental R&D.
The business sector is the major performer of R&D in the country and performs 53,8% of all R&D undertaken.
The higher education sector undertakes 25,3% of national R&D while government performs 19,9% of the total, but finances 28,1% of total R&D.
About 5,8% of South Africa’s R&D is financed from abroad.
Business tends to focus on near market research comprising applied research and experimental development that together comprises about 82,3% of R&D undertaken in the sector.
Higher education traditionally tends to focus more on basic research and 47,8% of its research effort was on pure basic and strategic basic research.
Higher education research in the applied and experimental development categories has increase marginally from about 50% in 1997 to 52,2% in 2001.
Altogether about 24,6% of total R&D performed in the country comprised basic research representing an expenditure of about 0,19% of GDP.
"It is important to have a strong basic research component in a country’s national system of innovation in order to ensure strong connections to rapidly developing new fields and to train new researchers," said Department of Science and Technology director general Dr Rob Adam.
"Basic research is also important in that it provides the skilled inputs to applied research and experimental development".
South Africa has targeted programmes that stimulate applied research and experimental development such as the Innovation Fund, THRIP, Competitiveness Fund and the Support Programme for Industrial Innovation.
"These ensure that there is high relevance in our later stage research efforts and enhance the probability of innovation," said Dr Adam.
"Applied research and experimental development contribute to economic development by providing new R&D based products and processes with potential for introduction to the market".
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