Stagnant R&D spending and plummeting patent applications are hampering South Africa’s competitiveness, report finds
South Africa’s national innovation system is losing ground globally, according to the country’s annual Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators Report.
The report, produced by the National Advisory Council on Innovation and published on 26 March, highlights signs of stagnation and “decline” characterised by falling publication momentum, sharply reduced patenting and stalling R&D investment.
It “presents us with a complex picture of a nation achieving bold milestones while facing critical challenges”, science minister Blade Nzimande said at the launch.
Local failings
The country’s R&D spending has stalled and sits at 0.61 per cent of GDP—far below the 1.5 per cent target the government has set for 2030. Declining business R&D spending is a major culprit in this decline, the report notes.
South Africa’s global publication share peaked at 1 per cent in 2021 before falling to 0.56 per cent in 2023, the report states. In key fields such as biotechnology, output has declined in absolute terms since 2019.
Publication citation scores, while historically above the global average, have also declined over the past two years.
Innovation indicators present an even more worrying picture. The country’s domestic patent applications per million people dropped from 39 in 2022 to 18.6 in 2023, according to the report. “Our local innovation is falling,” Nzimande said.
The report attributes these trends partly to intensifying global competition, as well as to structural weaknesses at home. South Africa’s declining world share of publications reflects the faster growth of countries such as China and India, the report says.
Higher education transformation
However, against this backdrop of stagnation and decline, Nzimande pointed to genuine progress on transformation within the higher education system. For the first time, women accounted for more than half of academic staff at South African universities in 2017—reaching 52 per cent by 2022.
Black African academic staff also grew in proportion from 27 per cent to 45 per cent of the total between 2010 and 2022. “This matters because it stimulates a more diverse research community and an ecosystem to address a wider range of research questions in order to address our country’s challenges,” said Nzimande.
Qualified success
The proportion of permanent academic staff holding PhDs rose from 35.7 per cent in 2010 to 52.5 per cent in 2022. This raises concerns about the capacity of academic staff—whose numbers have not grown at the same pace—to supervise doctoral students in future, the report notes.
The minister was careful to qualify his celebration of rising PhD numbers, raising concerns about a growing “industry” that offers to write doctoral theses and literature reviews on behalf of students.
Nzimande called on the National Advisory Council on Innovation to investigate the matter in conjunction with the Department of Higher Education and Training. “What’s the point of having a PhD if we are not genuine?” he asked.
The minister characterised the report as “a mirror” of the system’s current performance and “a compass” for future policy.