South African R&D spending drops but effects are uncertain

Nature : South Africa spent just under 21 billion rand ($2.2 billion) on research and development in the 2009â10 budget year, according to a recently released survey. That amount was down 86 million rand from the previous year, the first drop in spending in more than a decade. And for the third straight year, spending was down as a percentage of GDP. Perhaps even more significantly, private investment in R&D in the same period dropped 9.7% from the previous year. Science minister Derek Hanekom attributes the federal funding decrease to the global financial crisis and a failed 2006 tax rebate. He also points to the shelving of an experimental nuclear reactor project that did not receive necessary private funding. But he thinks that since 2010, the country has turned the corner. Despite the reduction in spending, the number of papers published by South African researchers has increased as has the number of citations received. Critics in South African industry, however, worry that the loss of funding will have a longer lasting impact than the short term numbers indicate.