Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) CEO Dr Thulani Dlamini has revealed that the CSIR is taking an innovative approach at a board level to seek ways to create an environment that allows for the commercialisation of its intellectual property.

Speaking at the CSIR’s Emerging Researchers Symposium on July 12, Dlamini said there were plenty of opportunities for new businesses emerging out of the CSIR’s research and development efforts, but that it would require innovative thinking and much support for young entrepreneurs to take novel IP coming out of the CSIR and make a successful business out of it.

He said innovation in entrepreneurship was the most powerful way to address South Africa’s many economic problems and create employment for the youth of the country.

Dlamini added that the current generation of students and graduates had had to deal with the uniquely negative impacts of several local and international economic crises, a global pandemic and the rising urgency of climate change.

Dlamini said all of these forces had had a significantly negative impact on the development of the youth and had made it more difficult for them to succeed. Despite this, older generations continued to place their hopes in the younger generations to forge a future which was better than what they were currently faced with.

“We all have a responsibility to do that which we can to provide mechanisms to support the young people of today, to ensure they are given the maximum opportunity possible to create a future that we all wish for,” he said.

The Emerging Researchers Symposium was initiated to showcase the work done by emerging researchers at the CSIR, who include candidate researchers, researchers, students in the studentship programme, postdoctoral programme candidates, as well as individuals on postgraduate bursary programmes – including CSIR bursary students, Department of Science and Innovation Inter-Bursary Support Programme students; and Manufacturing, Engineering and Related Services Sector Education and Training Authority bursary students.

The two-day event is a continuation of the CSIR’s Youth Month celebrations and is used as a curtain-raiser for the eighth CSIR Biennial Conference.

The symposium hosted emerging researchers from the CSIR and the organisation’s strategic stakeholders, who presented and discussed topics in their areas of expertise.