Japan and South Africa have a long-standing and well- established STI co- operation programme, which Japan is keen to expand. However, issues stemming from bureaucracy, IP ownership, modalities within joint projects, and the death of high-level skills in South Africa are all hampering efforts to realise greater degrees of collaboration between the two countries. Japan, being the world leader in catalysis research but lacking the platinum reserves and solar energy for the production of hydrogen, is therefore an important partner for South Africa, in terms of advancing the country's ambitions of being part of the hydrogen economy.