Creating competitive advantage

Innovation and the development of intellectual property are key economic drivers. Countries, and regions, can no longer depend on natural resources to be globally competitive and are striving to stimulate innovation as a fundamental source of competitiveness by building on locally generated intellectual property linked to their research base.

In the US, a national innovation initiative is driving a rapid increase in innovation performance, while Europe`s Lisbon strategy has an innovation target of outstripping the US as the most competitive and dynamic economy in the world by 2009. And in countries throughout the developing world - Korea, India, China, Brazil, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia - similar stimulation activities are all addressing priorities in this area.

Certainly in the technology domain, any country that wants to create and sustain competitive advantage in the global market needs to ensure innovative developments can be protected in the marketplace.

In terms of technological achievement, SA is ranked 39th out of the top 162 countries. Despite our relatively small economy on a world scale, South Africans have over the years, achieved significant global recognition for important contributions to technological innovation. Many of these achievements, however, were made in other countries.

It is clear that we are still largely perceived as an adopter, rather than an innovator, of technology. To retain - and enhance - our competitiveness status, we must do more to augment the imported and implanted technologies. The imperative is to create environments that spur innovation and exploit intellectual property, so that we can feed the technology commercialisation value chain that will ensure revenue generation.

To retain - and enhance - our competitiveness status, we must do more to augment the imported and implanted technologies.

Dr Neville Comins, CEO of The Innovation Hub Management Company.

The South African government is well aware of the need to stimulate entrepreneurship, innovation and growth among knowledge-intensive businesses. Science and technology education, innovation and commercialisation are integral components of our national system of innovation. The key challenges are adequate funding, skilled human resources, improved private sector R&D, protecting and exploiting intellectual property, and integrating a fragmented government science and technology system.

The national R&D strategy of 2002 highlights the "commercialisation chasm" between our R&D and business sectors and the need to develop improved technology transfer mechanisms. While there have been significant increases in the R&D spend in SA - now R10.1 billion from the public and private sectors - this will need to result in a commensurate level of exploitation to impact on the economy.

A number of agencies have been created to support the growth and development of small, medium and micro enterprises and most of our universities have launched technology transfer and commercialisation offices. However, we have not followed an international trend to create value-adding environments to link these in business clusters where ongoing synergies can be exploited. The question remains as to whether we are focusing enough attention and resources on addressing this chasm.

A move in the right direction has been the establishment of The Innovation Hub by the Gauteng Provincial Government through its Blue IQ investment agency. Nearly 50 years of significant learning across the world has led to the recognition that Science Parks create technology clusters which support and stimulate innovation. The very essence of a Science Park is to manage the flow of knowledge - between universities, research and development institutions, industry and government - which drives the development of intellectual property, opens up competitive new market sectors and stimulates technological, organisational and product advancement.

The local development is built on international learning and benchmarking and as a result, has been awarded membership of the International Association of Science Parks, the first in Africa. Most of its emerging businesses, however, originate from the private sector and much more work is clearly needed to ensure the results of research reach the market.

It is nine years since the national system of innovation became policy. Much has been achieved about which we can all be proud. As the world moves ahead in the knowledge-economy, SA must challenge the "commercialisation chasm" as a national priority and in an aligned way. Some of the remaining questions worth asking include:

* Is the intellectual property generated in research institutions treated as a `possession` or as a capital asset?
* Do support and development funding schemes serve the interests of only a few institutions?
* Is the power of a hi-tech cluster of universities, businesses and agencies finally starting to be realised in SA?
* Is competition between institutions still overriding our need to harness all the expertise we can muster to compete with international commercial outputs of R&D?
* Do we adequately encourage and reward the innovators in our institutions?

The status quo will not resolve these issues, but emerging new initiatives, such as The Innovation Hub, are ready to play a greater role to see SA flourish.