Chairperson, hon members, Ministers, Deputy Minister Hanekom, Deputy Minister Mahlangu-Nkabinde, and stakeholders of the science and technology community, I'm pleased to welcome you all to this presentation of the Budget Vote of the Department of Science and Technology.
Those of you who have walked through our modest exhibition have been able to get some insight into some of the work that is being supported by the department. As you will have seen, we operate in a wide range of fields, from aerospace to paleoanthropology, stem cell research to nanotechnology, reviving African identity to understanding social change and advancing excellence in health and agriculture. We have also contributed to South Africa's first electric car, the Joule.
The science and technology sector is replete with examples of excellence and has immense potential to support South Africa in responding to a wide range of challenges, while also advancing us in innovation and technology- based business development. Chairperson, if the Speaker and Whips gave Ministers more time to speak in the Budget Vote debates, I would have been able to tell you about all these things. [Applause.]
The past financial year has been an active and very productive year for the department. We have participated in shaping government's agenda for growth and industrial development, while also acting on our intention to establish a robust and productive system of innovation.
Our primary mandate is the promotion of research and development. Government has supported this objective by ensuring that we have continued growth in research and development funding. As a country, our R16 billion investment in research and development grew to R18 billion in 2007. This is not yet the 1% of gross domestic product, GDP, that we want to achieve, but we are tantalisingly close at 0,93%. We believe that as government we need to aim for at least 1,5% of GDP by 2014 if we were to build on the progress achieved over the past six years.
Our 2002 National Research and Development Strategy and the 2007 10-year innovation plan remain the basis for our interventions. I have directed my department to develop an integrated research and development strategy document, drawing on these two important strategic policies. This will ensure that we have a coherent strategic framework and avoid a situation where at one point we referred to the 2002 document and at another to the 2007 document.
Members are aware that in our 10-year plan we focus on five priority areas, while also integrating those research areas elaborated on in the 2002 research and development strategy. In the past year, we have provided support to programmes that bolster research and innovation in biotechnology, hydrogen energy initiatives, advanced materials manufacturing and the Square Kilometre Array, among many others.
Our investment in research is directed at ensuring that we enhance and expand excellence in universities, science councils and industry. Four important objectives are being actively pursued: adequate human capital and significantly expanded research and development activity; socioeconomic development; enhanced innovation and international research collaboration.
Regarding human capital development, we believe that this area is key to our intention to build a sustainable platform for innovation. Our country needs thousands of talented and skilled researchers and technologists if we are to achieve the ambitious goals we have set for the sector. Investment in support for bursaries has grown every year since 2004. The allocation for 2010-2011 increased by R76 million from the 2009-10 allocation.
The value of awards has been negatively affected by inflation and, given the important need to ensure we attract and retain the most talented, we have decided to adjust our priorities and to allocate a further R52,7 million in the 2010 financial year to improve the value of grant holder-linked and freestanding bursaries. That deserves a round of applause. [Applause.]
We have also provided funding to improve our investment in academic and research staff and in research infrastructure. We will expand our Research Chairs Initiative by adding 20 new research chairs within the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework period. This initiative has allowed us to attract leading researchers and doctoral candidates and is a programme that I believe we need to expand well beyond the current planned 210 research chairs.
We are also working with the Department of Higher Education and Training to develop a plan and strategy to improve the qualifications profile of academics and researchers at our universities. Currently, approximately 37% of university academics have a doctoral degree. Such a degree is a fundamental prerequisite for a person to participate meaningfully in research as well as to supervise postgraduate students. We must therefore ensure that we improve the profile, in terms of qualifications, of our academics.
Hon members, our science councils and national facilities are all making an important contribution to the objective of training more senior researchers in our country. They train interns at master's and doctoral level. Along with universities they are making an immeasurable contribution to our ambitions. We need to ensure that we provide all these institutions with sufficient resources to continue to play a role in national development plans.
It is my intention to appoint a ministerial committee to review the national innovation system and to assess whether our systems and infrastructure are of a quality to support our implementation of our national research agenda. I intend to use the committee's report to develop a national science and technology infrastructure investment plan.
We will continue to invest in infrastructure, even as we develop a plan. An amount of R1,35 billion is provided in this financial year for research and equipment infrastructure. Of this, R538 million is allocated to the South African National Research and Education Network, SANReN, and the Centre for High Performance Computing.
Our expanding research mandate and activity will have to be supported by capable and efficient institutions that have the capacity and flexibility to identify talent and opportunity and to ensure sustained support to established researchers.
Over the past few years, the National Research Foundation, the NRF, has been assigned a wide range of mandates and strategic contracts by our department. I believe this may have distracted it from its core purpose of funding research, providing high-quality research facilities and promoting innovation.
I will direct the department and the NRF board to assess the impact of ring- fenced funding and contracts on the ability of the NRF to execute its core mandate. One area that I believe requires attention is that of developing black and women senior researchers. We will ask the NRF to advise us on steps to be taken to achieve higher levels of success in this regard. [Applause.] We will also work closely with the Human Sciences Research Council, HSRC, and the Africa Institute of South Africa, AISA, to determine support interventions to give impetus to the humanities, the social sciences and the important study of Africa. Both councils are doing excellent work in these fields, and I'm committed to ensuring they enjoy full support from the Department of Science and Technology and from the Ministry. We must never neglect to ensure that our human and social sciences also enjoy attention and grow, particularly in supporting a society as involved in change as ours is.
Earlier this year, I signalled my intention to review the current location of the ratings system. I'm hopeful that the NRF and the Academy of Science for South Africa, ASSAF, will advise me on the most appropriate location for ensuring continued attention and reward for excellence in research and development. Raising a query about the location of the ratings system does not mean we wish to do away with it, but that we want to address the issue of whether it is best located in an institution that funds researchers and also rewards good researchers. It is just a peculiar link that we believe requires some attention.
I also believe that, given the challenge of transforming the sector in order to improve quality and to increase black and female researchers, we need to provide specific rewards for nurturing nontraditional researchers as well as for institutions that are working hard to establish a competent research profile. So, we will find ways of rewarding institutions both for nurturing this category that remains nontraditional, and for ensuring that universities that are publishing more, that are innovating, get the necessary support from government and don't miss the boat because they are not traditionally recognised as having competence in the research arena.
One of the neglected areas that I believe the department must pay attention to is the issue of collaborating more closely with the universities of technology. In the department we tend to be far more focused on the science than on the technology part of our mandate, and it is an area I think we must address. Our mandate of technology innovation and promotion means dedicated attention must be given to applied research institutions. Universities of technology do have close links with industry, and these may be very useful in securing increased access to innovative ideas and to the identification of programmes in industry that could benefit from direct government support.
We will be doing much more to ensure that we improve the links between that triple helix of universities, government and industry to make the strides we must in innovation. We have provided funding to improve our investment in academic and research staff and in research infrastructure. I believe I may be committing the terrible error of repeating myself, Deputy Minister.
Our expansion programme will devote increasing attention to ensuring co- ordinated government research support. Our government invests in research via several departments. Some of these departments control key national research facilities, eg the forensic laboratory, the Agricultural Research Council and many others. This department has to ensure that quality infrastructure and high-level skills are present in all national research facilities.
I intend to propose the establishment of an interministerial science and technology committee to ensure improved planning and resourcing. We will investigate the possibility of establishing appropriate oversight mechanisms with the assistance of the National Planning Commission. It cannot be that in our country we have a forensic laboratory that is not of a world-class standard. [Applause.] All our facilities must be world-class.
I believe science and technology have significant potential for assisting South Africa to resolve its most intractable socioeconomic problems and challenges. In fact, I believe socioeconomic problems are opportunities for innovators. One of our biggest challenges is poverty and its associated features of joblessness and community neglect.
In the 2009 Budget Speech, I indicated that traditional approaches to socioeconomic development can no longer suffice for our country. All of us have to recognise that future growth will depend on how well we exploit science, technology and innovation. We have worked with several partners on a number of pilot initiatives that are beginning to show promising results.
Our successful implementation of the Wireless Mesh Network in municipalities in the Northern Cape, in the John Taolo Gaetsewe Municipality, and in Limpopo, in the Sekhukhune region, indicates that we are on target to connect at least 450 schools and to create sustainable job opportunities for young entrepreneurs who will manage service provision.
The Department of Science and Technology also provides support to a number of technology-transfer initiatives that are directly addressing and targeting poverty. These are directed at providing innovative local technology solutions through the creation of small, medium and micro enterprises and through providing sustainable job-creation and wealth- creation opportunities.
Aquaculture is a noteworthy example. The Department of Science and Technology supported an aquaculture abalone-harvesting pilot project in Hondeklip Bay in the Northern Cape. This pilot has shown us that it is possible to utilise aquaculture to improve abalone production for commercial purposes.
The pilot project is going to draw the Northern Cape government, the private sector and ourselves into a R48,8 million capital investment project to develop an abalone farm with a production capacity of 120 tonnes, creating 120 full-time jobs and 25 part-time job opportunities. [Applause.]
A women-owned medium enterprise to produce abalone baskets for commercial production has also been created. Two abalone hatcheries will also be established to draw on intellectual property that emerged from Innovation Fund-supported research. The hatcheries will be built in the Northern Cape and in the Western Cape.
A number of other research-based business initiatives that draw on existing programmes will give rise to new enterprises and new jobs, exploiting opportunities derived from indigenous knowledge, from advanced manufacturing processes and chemicals development.
We are also making good progress in an innovative process for the production of low-cost titanium. Two patent applications have been filed on the primary process. Initial success in this research will be supported by the establishment and operational testing of a primary titanium plant in the 2011-12 financial year.
Our country has a comparative advantage in zircon. We supply 30% of the world's zircon in an unbeneficiated form. Our advanced materials initiative, in collaboration with the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa, Necsa, is developing a technology to add value, by producing nuclear-grade zirconium material. In its raw form, zircon sells at $800 per ton; when beneficiated, nuclear-grade zirconium sells at $2 300 per ton. An innovative plasma technology process has been developed, and three patents have been filed by our scientists. These are a few examples of our responsiveness to socioeconomic challenges. There are many more, but we don't have the speaking time.
The projects I referred to above have been initiated and nurtured by the Department of Science and Technology due to an inadequate infrastructure for innovation. Many of these promising initiatives will be handed over to the Technology Innovation Agency, TIA, for future funding.
The TIA's priority in the 2010-11 financial year will be to build a high- performance organisation from the merger of the seven entities. This year, TIA will focus on a number of strategic projects, particularly those that address social needs such as the HIV and TB pandemic, education challenges and rural development.
The TIA has begun to analyse its historical portfolio, starting with the information communication technology, ICT, and biotechnology initiatives already under way. The repositioning and restructuring of the current portfolio, they tell me, will take between 12 to 24 months. We believe that the existence of TIA is going to give rise to significant benefits for our economy through research that successfully results in commercial products. We will also soon gazette the regulations of the intellectual property rights from the Publicly Financed Research and Development Act, Act 51 of 2008. The Act should come into operation in June this year. We are planning to establish the National Intellectual Property Management Office, NIPMO, as well as to facilitate the setting up of offices of technology transfer at publicly funded institutions.
We have pursued innovation by also initiating ambitious global-scale initiatives. I'm pleased that in all our initiatives we provide for postgraduate development programmes and we also ensure that we promote local technology innovation.
Hon members, our strategies include a number of science focus areas that draw on our geographic advantage. These include astronomy ...