CAPE TOWN, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- A new survey has shown that South Africa's gross domestic expenditure on research and development (R&D) grew to 28.28 billion rands (about 1.57 billion U.S. dollars) in real terms for the 2022/2023 fiscal year, marking a 2.1 percent increase from 27.71 billion rands in 2021/2022.
This is according to the results of the South African R&D Survey for the period 2022/2023, released by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa Thursday.
The proportion of R&D expenditure to gross domestic product (GDP), however, remained unchanged at 0.61 percent.
"South Africa's economy grew at a comparable 1.9 percent in 2022, so this is why the ratio of R&D to GDP, a measure of the research intensity of the South African economy, is static," HSRC's Nazeem Mustapha, who led the survey, said in a statement. "But we are seeing improvements in business R&D expenditure, which should be encouraging for policymakers and investors."
The survey report, prepared for the South African Department of Science, Technology and Innovation by the HSRC's Center for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (CeSTII), updates key national longitudinal data on R&D expenditure and personnel in the country.
The business sector increased its R&D expenditure in 2022/2023 by almost 1 billion rands, from 13.53 billion rands in 2021/2022 to 14.51 billion rands in 2022/2023. The increase can be attributed to higher spending in the manufacturing and mining sectors, according to the survey report.
Meanwhile, nominal expenditure increased in all institutional sectors covered by the survey, including the government, higher education institutions, non-profit organizations, and science councils. The key funders of R&D in South Africa in 2022/2023 were the government, businesses, and foreign sources.
Despite this growth, the country's researcher headcount decreased from 63,122 in 2021/2022 to 61,457 in 2022/2023. However, the proportion of women researchers to total researchers increased marginally from 47 percent in 2021/2022 to 47.6 percent in 2022/2023, revealed the report.
"A positive about the results is that we are starting to see a reversal of the drop in R&D spending that we observed in 2019/2020, even before the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on R&D performers were reported," said CeSTII's Executive Head Glenda Kruss.
According to the website of the South African national government, HSRC is the largest research institute in Africa focusing on the social sciences and humanities. The South African R&D Survey is conducted annually and serves as a key indicator for policymakers, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of South Africa's research and development landscape. ■