{"id":83555,"date":"2022-10-14T05:25:52","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T05:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theoutlier.co.za\/?p=83555"},"modified":"2025-11-17T17:42:43","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:42:43","slug":"massive-drop-in-south-african-business-rd-funding-is-a-threat-to-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/2022\/10\/14\/massive-drop-in-south-african-business-rd-funding-is-a-threat-to-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"SA business spending on R&D in decline"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Business funding for research and development almost halved between 2017\/18 and 2019\/20, down from R16-billion to R9-billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is according to a report<\/a> published by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in September 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this a trend? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This downward trend in R&D is likely to continue into 2020 because of the effect of the Covid-19 lockdowns on the economy, said Dr Nazeem Mustapha, chief research specialist for the HSRC\u2019s South African National Survey of Research and Experimental Development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest survey for 2020\/21 will be released in December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Who is funding R&D now?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, the total expenditure in South Africa for R&D was R34.5-billion. The government accounted for 58% of that (R19.4-billion), business 28% (R9.4-billion) and foreign companies and countries 14% (R4.7-billion).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which sectors lost business R&D funding? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The financial services sector lost about a third of its R&D funding between 2015 and 2019, dropped from R5.9-billion to R4-billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funding for manufacturing also dropped from R4.4-billion in 2015 to R3.5-billion in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mining R&D spending dropped by 44% between 2018 and 2019 \u2013 from R1.748-billion (2018) to R686-million (2019). This was \u201ca direct result of the sale of mining companies and their assets or restructuring in R&D performing mining entities\u201d, the HSRC survey noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Annual report <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The HSRC conducts the survey every year. It interviews business, government institutions (state-owned enterprises, universities and science councils) and non-profits about spending on research and what type of research is being done. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before 2006, businesses used to match the government’s spending on research and development in South Africa, now the government spends more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,446,1387],"tags":[203,204],"newsletter-post":[],"site":[],"class_list":["post-83555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-news","category-the-outlier","tag-human-sciences-research-council","tag-research-and-development"],"acf":{"big_number":null,"big_number_caption":null,"big_number_link":null,"big_number_background":null,"big_number_text_colour":null,"big_number_icon":null,"big_number_wide":null,"featured_chart":null,"flourish_chart_id":null,"flourish_sub_title":null,"flourish_chart_width":null,"is_newsletter_post":null,"post_style":null,"show_on_front":null,"link_through":null,"chart_url":null,"background_colour":null,"text_colour":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86595,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83555\/revisions\/86595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83555"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-post?post=83555"},{"taxonomy":"site","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/site?post=83555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}