R&D as a source of innovation in South Africa

Abstract

In investigating the link between R&D and innovation, data was used from the South African Innovation Survey of 2001 (SAIS2001). The SAIS2001 results showed that South African enterprises had a relatively high level of innovation with a low level of R&D related innovation costs. A cross tabulation was performed and a statistically significant link between innovation and R&D was found. The group of firms who innovated had a higher tendency to conduct R&D. Universities or Public Research Organisations (PROs) – the ‘conventional’ sources of R&D - was rated mostly as unimportant external sources of innovation. This is ascribed to the fact that most R&D that is conducted internally is at the experimental development level and requires little basic or applied research. Sectors also differ in their use of R&D as a source of innovation. Based on the abovementioned data, a positive correlation between R&D and innovation was found in the SAIS2001 data. However, the majority of R&D reported in SAIS2001 is in-house R&D. In contrast, national R&D programmes focus on science intensive industries where R&D (basic and applied) is an important source of innovation. These can be easily quantified by the annual R&D surveys. However, at the national industry level, the link between R&D and innovation requires more frequent quantification as an input into STI policy. It is therefore recommended that in a developing country such as South Africa, R&D should be closer aligned to enable innovation at industry level