South Africa’s gross expenditure on research and development (GERD) increased in 2017/18 for the seventh year in succession, the 2017/18 National Research and Experimental Development Survey, published last month, has reported.
However, this growth trend is decelerating. Further, in terms of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), GERD was virtually unchanged. In 2016/17, GERD amounted to 0.82% of South Africa’s GDP, while in 2017/18 it totalled 0.83%.
In current rand values, national GERD amounted to R38 725-million in 2017/18, compared with R35 693-million in 2016/17. This represented a nominal 8.5% rise. When calculated in constant 2010 prices, GERD grew by 3.1% from 2016/17 to 2017/18, reaching R25 963-million.
The number of R&D staff in the country also increased. In 2016/17, the country employed 80 029 people in R&D. In 2017/18, this had increased by 4 233 to 84 262, a rise of 5.3%. The country had enjoyed a “robust increase” in the number of its R&D staff since 2011, stated the report. This was the result of a net intake of such personnel.
In terms of the ratio of full-time-equivalent researchers for every 1 000 people with jobs, this was 1.8 in 2017/18, a slight rise from the 1.7 in 2016/17 (and in 2015/16). However, the number of technicians and other R&D staff has remained somewhat static since 2012/13, at about 11 300 and 11 600 respectively. This was a matter for concern, and the country especially needed more technicians, given the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The largest source of R&D funding was government (46.7% of the total), with business second (41.5%). Other local sources contributed 1.6% and foreign sources were responsible for 10.2%. Government has been the largest source of local R&D funding since 2007/8. (Over the period 2007/8 to 2017/18, the higher education sector’s contribution to national GERD rose from 20% to 37%.) The relative share of business in national R&D spending has declined over time – in 2006/7, business was responsible for 56% of South Africa’s R&D.
“The composition of business R&D has changed over time per major industrial category, mostly in line with broader changes in the structure of the economy,” stated the report. “There have been robust increases in business expenditure on R&D (BERD) attributed to the services industries, while manufacturing and mining-related R&D has declined. R&D in the financial intermediation, real estate and business services sector now dominates, contributing about 48.8% of BERD in 2017/18. This sector’s R&D spend has surpassed that of the manufacturing sector since 2011/12.”
The Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) defines GERD as “an aggregated measure of in-house R&D expenditure performed domestically in five sectors, namely government, science councils, higher education institutions, the business sector, and the not-for-profit sector”. The survey was carried out for the DSI by the Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators of the Human Sciences Research Council, supported by Statistics South Africa.