Innovation is widely recognised as a key ingredient in the growth of economies. At firm level, it is equally vital as a capability for businesses to cooperate and compete. International collaboration occurs when enterprises work together across borders with partners on joint innovation projects and is one way that businesses can optimise the innovation process on a much wider level.
Drawing on the latest available national South African innovation and R&D data, this fact sheet shows that while some South African businesses already collaborate internationally on innovation, more collaborate through local innovation partnerships, which includes R&D partnerships. As such, potential opportunities exist for more South African firms to share skills, risk, and resources by expanding joint work with international partners. Where international collaboration is not taking place, the barriers preventing it need to be understood and addressed at policy level.
Data collected through the surveys, and their historic data series, inform decision-makers on investment planning, policy-making, advocacy, and research in South Africa. Data streams also add to benchmarking and performance comparisons with our international counterparts. Please note that some indicator totals may be subject to rounding errors.
“For policymakers to develop, implement and improve policies that facilitate adoption and diffusion while mitigating the potential associated risks, they need to understand the implications involved,” write Buchana, Sithole, and Majokweni (2022) in a new HSRC Policy Brief. “The main policy issue at hand is the absence of evidence-based policy instruments intended for facilitating the diffusion and use of these advanced ICTs in the agricultural sector.”
Yasser Buchana (PhD), Senior Research Specialist, Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators, Human Sciences Research Council | ybuchana[at]hsrc.ac.za
Moses M. Sithole (PhD), Research Director, Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators, Human Sciences Research Council | msithole[at]hsrc.ac.za
Pilela Majokweni, Senior Researcher, Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators, Human Sciences Research Council | pmajokweni[at]hsrc.ac.za
“Current policy instruments to promote innovation do not consider all of the drivers of innovation investment and success, and there is a need for a mix of tools – known as policy levers – that explicitly consider the differential impact of these drivers on product versus process innovation,” argues Kahn (2022) in a new HSRC Policy Brief.
Join this policy forum to explore new sources of evidence to strengthen agricultural innovation in South Africa. Engage with speakers playing key roles in the sectoral system, including in industry associations, universities, businesses, government, and the media.
Why this policy forum, now
The South African White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation (2019) places the modernisation and strengthening of agriculture firmly on South African’s innovation agenda. Vital to food and job security, skills enhancement, and increased competitiveness across local and global markets, the case for strengthening agricultural innovation is compelling and urgent. Agricultural actors—such as producers (smallholder to large-scale farmers, loggers, and fishers), formal agribusinesses (small, medium, and large), industry associations, financial institutions, and policy actors—face diverse challenges. These include: addressing climate change; improving production, processing and market efficiency; ensuring product and facility certification and compliance; and enhancing absorptive capacity for new and emerging technologies, including 4IR. How, then, can the innovation policy agenda be advanced to strategically enable actors to address these and future challenges, and to provide adequate and timely responses that build resilience in this sector?
The evidence provided by South Africa’s first national Agricultural Business Innovation Survey, alongside, for example, the Statistics South Africa Census of Commercial Agriculture, represent key recent empirical contributions to ongoing policy discussions. Using the available data as one of the tools, this policy forum aims to address questions in agricultural innovation from the perspectives of three sub-sectors—farming, forestry, and fisheries, including the actors impacted—and explore routes to address a series of key questions.
Key questions
Do existing science, technology and innovation (STI) policy instruments support innovation activity in South African agribusinesses as effectively as they could? Are there types of innovation that do not occur on a wide enough scale, or are ‘below the radar’, that we should promote systematically? What are the different strategies required to promote the distinctive patterns of innovation in different agricultural sub-sectors?
In different agricultural sub-sectors, do we need specific funding instruments for R&D-led innovation, technological upgrading, and organisation or non-technological innovation to transform the agricultural, food and nutrition system in a more targeted manner? How can DSI coordinate and align its policy, strategies and interventions with other stakeholders in the agricultural system of innovation, including related government departments, science councils and universities, financial institutions, and industry associations, to address the barriers and constraints?
This high level, evidence-led virtual discussion on innovation and innovation measurement in South Africa on 28 August 2020 will feature key speakers from government, business, universities and civil society.
The eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 has resulted in rapid pivoting across government, business and civil society, as actors adapt to the plethora of new threats, risks, and opportunities. As the outbreak deepens in South Africa, the role of innovation cannot be overstated in evidence-led planning for the country’s economic recovery. South Africa’s White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation, published in 2019, articulates a clear role of innovation in promoting sustainable and inclusive development in a changing world. It is therefore vital to interrogate the evidence we have on innovation, in order to inform the optimal policy mixes, which are fast-changing in relation to the urgencies presented by national and global, but also sectoral, COVID-19 responses.
This high-level policy forum will bring together high-level actors in a virtual setting to:
Launch the 2020 South African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators report produced by the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI)
Present the latest reviews of the National Research and Development Strategy (NRDS) and the Ten Year Innovation Plan recently conducted by NACI
Share on new data sets produced by the Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators on behalf of the Department of Science and Innovation, including the Business Innovation Survey, 2014-2016, the Agricultural Business Innovation Survey, 2016-2018, and the Baseline Survey of Innovation in the Informal Economy 2018
Reflect on the role of indicators in monitoring the state of the National System of Innovation (NSI), by drawing in key perspectives from business, government, civil society and universities, and explore using evidence how South Africa’s NSI is geared towards inclusive and sustainable development
In 2020, we invite thought leaders and decision-makers from business, government, higher education, industry and civil society to consider their experiences and challenges, to highlight critical issues for measurement and policy-making going forward.
Key questions
What role can and should innovation play in South Africa’s recovery post-COVID?
What adaptations to current policy mixes should be explored, based on new evidence?
Do we have the right kinds of innovation measures appropriate to the South African context?
What have we learned about innovation from the experience of pivoting to the changes brought by COVID, across business, civil society, universities and government?
“It is necessary to nurture innovation as a key objective within the economic development sphere,” the Plan states.
The objective will be to develop new types of approaches, solutions, processes and materials which will have the potential to clearly identify the region as one which is conducive to creativity, innovation and design. We seek to establish a regional culture that supports and evokes industry collaboration and to scale sustainability, innovations and technology. (p.16)
As the Plan’s strategic cycle draws to a close, the launch of the National Advisory Council on Innovation’s 2019 STI Indicators report, as part of its provincial roadshows, provides an excellent opportunity for critical reflection on progress toward these goals and an opportunity to highlight plans for the new 5-year strategic cycle.
Nested within a national systems of innovation perspective, but with a clear focus on the provincial lens, the programme is designed to catalyse a reflective and formative conversation, between and across sectors, with key business and government stakeholders sharing needs, programming and strategy lessons, and ideas for the future.
About the 2019 NACI Provincial Roadshow: The NACI report assesses STI performance in terms of quality of life and wealth creation, enabled by business performance through innovation, a framework informed by the National R&D Strategy of 2002. In 2019, we invite thought leaders and decision-makers from business principally, but also government and industry associations, to consider their experiences and challenges, to highlight critical issues for measurement and policy-making going forward.
Key questions
What does an innovative regional government look like and why is this important in the regional innovation system?
What does a regional culture of innovation that is conducive to the needs of diverse industries and the businesses within them look like and how can a region be positioned as an innovative region?
How is the Western Cape regional innovation system performing in terms of providing an enabling environment for innovation in order for Western Cape businesses to remain competitive and to create opportunities for job creation and economic growth?
How does the structure of industries nationally enhance or circumscribe provincial innovation, particularly in terms of human capabilities and networks?
Is the Western Cape geared to respond to new urgencies and global challenges, such as environmental change, and how can business innovation stakeholders play a more active role in this respect?
