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Innovation Agency makes progress

Nicola Mawson
By Nicola Mawson, Contributor.
Johannesburg, 22 May 2015
The Technology Information Agency is poised to show further improvements, says science and technology minister Naledi Pandor.
The Technology Information Agency is poised to show further improvements, says science and technology minister Naledi Pandor.

The beleaguered Technology Innovation Agency has implemented a successful turnaround strategy and has been repositioned, says minister of science and technology, Naledi Pandor.

Pandor, who was briefing the media yesterday ahead of her budget vote, noted the agency would receive R385 million this financial year. She added it now had a new CEO and was poised to demonstrate further improvements.

Barlow Manilal was recently appointed to head up the agency, replacing professor Rivka Kfir, whose tenure as interim CEO ended at the end of March.

The agency is at the tail end of an intense organisational redesign process and, last year, initiated a retrenchment process that Solidarity claims to have halted.

Pandor noted it has now been repositioned "as an agency whose funding instruments will better enable innovators, entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises to commercialise their technology innovations".

Three funds have been provided for in the new TIA strategy:

* Seed Fund, which is aimed at assisting universities, in particular, to bridge financing requirements to translate research outputs into fundable ideas for commercialisation.
* Technology Development Fund, which is available to organisations, individual entrepreneurs and SMEs to advance technologies along the innovation value chain.
* Commercialisation Support Fund, which prepares innovators for follow-on funding.

Since 2010, the agency has supported more than 8 130 small and medium enterprises to accelerate technical innovation through technology development, said Pandor.

More funding

Pandor noted the department has a R7.5 billion budget, of which 92.2% will go to entities that report to the department. Of this amount, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research receives R827.7 million, the National Research Foundation gets R885.9 million, and the Human Sciences Research Council is allocated R288.7 million.

The department would also provide the South African National Space Agency with R124.4 million and the Academy of Science of South Africa is allocated R22.991 million.

Pandor said the balance of the funding will be transferred to entities for various projects and programmes during the course of the year.

During the next three years, the department's priorities are to:

* Develop human capital;
* Create new knowledge;
* Invest in research and infrastructure, and;
* Encourage innovation by funding marketable products emerging from research and incubation.

"We will also intensify our international cooperation to secure a strategic target of R380 million in foreign investments in the National System of Innovation during the year," said Pandor. She noted the department would also provide the National Research Foundation with money to fund 14 880 postgraduate research students this year.

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