The European Union (EU) has reiterated its committed to continuing its support for South Africa in the field of science and technology.

“Science and technology is a lynchpin in our collaboration. We’ve witnessed how South Africa is gradually but consistently moving ahead towards a knowledge-based economy,” EU Ambassador to South Africa Marcus Cornaro said on Tuesday.

He added that South Africa and the EU were also committed to advancing the science agenda on the African continent. The EU recently signed a new innovation partnership on food nutrition security and sustainable agriculture with the African Union.

Cornaro told a Department of Science and Technology function in Cape Town that he anticipated further collaboration with South Africa’s State-owned mineral and metallurgical innovation company Mintek on the beneficiation of minerals. He also highlighted the EU’s work with the South Africa National Space Agency in its mapping and monitoring of informal settlements.

“This shows how we can link the very advanced world of science with day-to-day policy challenges – human settlement underpinned by space technology.”

Cornaro raised other small but innovative joint projects, such as the “cinema in a backpack” project, which had turned 14 microentrepreneurs into mobile cinema operators in rural areas.

Speaking about the EU’s policy on Research and Development (R&D), Cornaro said the EU encouraged its member States to move towards spending 3% of their gross domestic product on research by 2020. This was made up of 1% of public funding and 2% of private sector contributions.

“We are not there yet. We’re hovering around 2%. It’s above international levels, but not as high as we want it to be, and we’re trailing behind the US, Japan and South Korea.”

“If EU companies want to remain competitive, we need to push for a more ambitious R&D programme.”

Cornaro said innovation had proved to be a very good option in helping to overcome the global economic crisis.

“It’s widely accepted that investment in research drives long-term growth. ”

He said an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development study had shown that for every euro spent on research and innovation, €13 in value was added in the business sector.

It also found that those countries that had invested more in R&D had recovered more quickly from the economic crisis and showed lower figures of unemployment.

He said the EU would focus strongly on sustainable development in its R&D and was driving innovation on challenges such as climate change and active and healthy ageing. Within the EU, he said the vision on science and technology was recognised as one of the most important elements of EU integration.

"We want to have international partnerships to ensure we have the best scientists working on the key challenges, both in Europe and on a global level.”

But he conceded that there were imbalances, one of these being a gender imbalance in science, technology and innovation.

“Despite an extensive regulatory framework in science and technology, only 20% of full professors in Europe are women.”