SA has the potential to produce world-leading innovations. However, it needs to build a research culture and create self-confidence in order to realise this potential.
So says Johan Eksteen, manager of Meraka Institute's technological research programme.
"If you look at the technological innovations introduced by SA's banking and telecommunications industries, which have become world best practices, then it's hard to argue with our ability to research and develop alongside the rest of the world. However, we don't have a research culture in SA and this will only negate our efforts to be a world player in innovation," says Eksteen.
A major impact of not having a research culture is the country's inability to build a strong and sustainable human capital base, focused on research and development (R&D), he adds.
This sentiment echoes the National Research Foundation's (NRF's) strategy briefing to Parliament late last month.
According to the presentation, one of the NRF's key focus areas is human resource development, particularly growing the output of high-quality PhDs. It said SA would need to produce 6 000 PhDs a year by 2024, in order to build an innovative and entrepreneurial knowledge society.
"On one hand, we need to establish a South African innovation brand for ourselves and the rest of the world. On the other, we need to start celebrating our innovation successes alongside the more traditional measures of success like revenues and profits," urges Eksteen.
As for providing inspiration for SA's youth, Eksteen says work needs to be done to make R&D appealing for a broader range of interests.
"R&D work is not limited to scientists and engineers. It benefits greatly from fields like linguistics that were not historically considered to be 'scientific' roles. Most important though is that we create role models that inspire our youth towards innovation and develop that belief that SA does have the ability to play on the world field."
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