THE ALLOCATION OF THE 1996/1997 SCIENCE BUDGET

Issued by: Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology

13 December 1995

One of the most important and responsible tasks of my Ministry is the annual allocation of funds to our eight Science Councils and to other national projects in science and technology. In the past this process followed an inflexible baseline funding formula established in 1986.

This year, following a directive from Cabinet to aim for the eventual adoption of a budget from zero procedure, we decided to deviate from this formula. Despite strong pressure to move quickly into such a system we were mindful of the potentially destructive nature of rapid change. We therefore guaranteed each Science Council at least 94% (in normal terms) of its 1995/96 budget. We furthermore determined that the remaining money should be bid for competitively in terms of certain weighted criteria designed to favour projects with an RDP orientation. The Department of State Expenditure (DSE) decided on a 3.1% nominal increase in the science budget, which meant that an amount of approximately R 85 million could be bid for.

To facilitate a fair and informed allocation in terms of the abovementioned criteria, I appointed a pael of recognised experts from various fields in science and technology to interview the Presidents of the Science Councils following presentations of their budget proposals for next year. These interviews took place on the 2nd and 3rd of October. After having had final confirmation of the science budget from DSE, I have now ratified the decisions of the panel, which were dependent on the precise DSE allocation.

Before giving a broad outline of the motivations for the panel's decisions, I must emphasise that the small cuts we imposed on some Councils and on one of the National Facilities do not reflect negatively on their performance. Rather, in this time of belt-tightening and re-prioritising, it actually reflects the greater need of the other institutions to whom the additional funds were voted. The panel singled out several areas of research and development as being worthy of support.

Medical Research currently receives only 6% of the science vote. As a result, only six cents in every ten Rand spent on Health is spent on research, in comparison with international norms of about 20 cents. The panel felt that this imbalance needed to be addressed.
Our mining and minerals industry is still the backbone of the South African economy. New beneficiation technologies are seen as critical in enabling the industry to remain competitive. MINTEK's superb efforts in this regard, coupled with their programme in human resources development, convinced the panel that an increase was merited.
The South African Astronomical Observatory and the Hartebeeshoek Radio-Astronomical Observatory have done remarkable original research over the years, despite relatively trying financial constraints. The panel also felt that niche areas of international excellence in local science would be most likely to develop if local advantages, such as access to the southern skies, were exploited. Relatively large percentage increases were therefore granted to these institutions by the panel.
Essential research capacity development in historically disadvantaged universities and technikons (HDIs) is hampered by a lack of modern high quality research equipment. I have therefore decided to grant R16 million of RDP funds, over and above the funds allocated to me by the DSE, exclusively for the purchase of research equipment in HDIs via the Foundation of Research Development (FRD).
The staff profiles of most Science Councils are still overwhelmingly white and largely male. My Ministry does not wish any apparent financial obstacle to stand in the way of building representivity in the Councils. I have therefore decided to leave approximately R10 million temporarily unallocated. These funds may be accessed by submitting grant proposals to my Department specifically for the purpose of staff development. A set of criteria will be drawn up shortly and communicated to the Presidents of Science Councils. A panel discussion on these proposals, to which the press will be invited, will precede the allocation. I hope to complete this final step in the allocation by the end of February.

The procedure which I have described is only a beginning in what we see as a necessary trend towards zero-based and eventual performance-based budgeting. This year we had to fulfil our task without as thorough a knowledge of the outputs of science Councils as we would have liked - the Councils were evaluated more on the basis of their proposals than on their track records. In years to come, with evaluation mechanisms run by my Department effectively in place, as well as being informed by a National Advisory Council on Science and Technology (NACOST), I hope to oversee a much sharper and more public process. I am nevertheless firmly of the opinion that what the panel and my Department achieved this year is a great improvement on the mechanistic, opaque and inflexible baseline formula allocation method applied in previous years.