South African State-owned defence industrial group Denel signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) on Tuesday. The CSIR and Denel have been collaborating for many years, but this MoU will further strengthen and deepen the cooperation between the two institutions.

The MoU covers research and development (R&D) and technology projects including joint product development. A joint steering group will be set up to deal with matters such as intellectual property and market intelligence, while bilateral committees will be responsible for carrying out the actual projects.

The areas covered by the new agreement include advanced manufacturing, modelling and simulation, protected landward mobility and firepower, space engineering, systems engineering and unmanned systems. Included is the joint marketing of products and skills in international markets.

“We are delighted to extend our long-term relationship with Denel and to jointly move into exciting new areas that will contribute to South Africa’s broader objectives regarding innovation, skills development and technology transfer,” affirmed CSIR CEO Dr Sibusiso Sibisi. “Ultimately, our work promotes scientific development and stimulates industrial growth for the betterment of our society and economy. We pursue these goals in partnership with other public and private sector institutions.”

“The CSIR is the leading technology research organisation in Africa with a global reputation for the quality of its R&D,” highlighted Denel group CEO Riaz Saloojee. “By joining forces we will ensure that the South African defence and aerospace industry remains at the leading edge of international trends and developments.”

The cooperation will involve the aerospace, landward defence, missile and unmanned air vehicle businesses of Denel. The group’s R&D expenditure was R528-million and this was going to be increased. Defence R&D also provided spin-off benefits for non-defence sectors of the economy and society – all the way from electric car design to protecting the endangered rhino from poachers.

“Working together with the CSIR we will be pooling our resources and sharing existing information and the vast experience that already exists within these two organisations. This is a great opportunity to unlock this value to the greater benefit of South African industry,” stated Saloojee. “We want to attract the best and brightest of South Africa’s young minds into this industry and provide them with exciting opportunities to conduct state-of-the-art research.”