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Introduction


South Africa is facing structural problems in strengthening its research and innovation capacity in order to become and remain competitive in the global business environment. Although greater emphasis is given to strengthen Research and Development efforts in the country and to translate it into commercialization of products Wholesale Andy Dalton Jersey , South Africa are lagging behind its competitors on four critical domains of:


? The level of technological exports;
? Funds invested in Research and Innovation activities;
? Capability to transform relevant scientific knowledge and technological inventions into commercial applications; and
? Sourcing for competitive technologies.


Although it is realised that South Africa as a developing country cannot match the R&D spending of developed countries, the assumption is made that if South Africa can carry out R&I activity levels comparable to that of principle trading partners and competitors, it will be able to sustain its relative competitiveness in the world.


Complicating the situation further is the fact that South Africa is considered an innovation environment in which medium to low technology innovations dominate. Therefore, it is not a strong competitor for attracting research exports from foreign companies. This is due to the fact that this priviledge belongs to environments classified as at the forefront of research efforts, high technology oriented, huge market opportunities and dynamic in nature. Typical countries adhering to these requirements include amongst others China, India Wholesale Michael Jordan Jersey , the United States of America, Hungary and Romania (RTDinfo, 2006).


Purpose


The purpose of this article is to describe the vulnerable research and innovation base of South Africa in terms of the three domains mentioned in the introduction.


Technology exports of South Africa as percentage of world exports


According to statistics provided by Kaplan (2005) high technology export of South Africa, 0.3% in 2002, as a percentage of global exports represents indeed a very small proportion of world exports in technology. How poor is only conceived when compared to 2002 figures of other European countries such as Turkey (1.6%), United Kingdom (1.25%), Sweden (13.7%) Wholesale Renell Wren Jersey , Switzerland (21.6%), Spain (5.7%), Slovenia (4.9%), Portugal (6.8%), Norway (4.6%) and the Netherlands (18.7%).


Sufficiency of funding for R&I in South Africa


Whilst the aim of the South African Government is to spend at least 1% of its GDP on R&D this objective has never been reaches since 1983 (No survey was done in 1995 and 1999). With a median of 0.76 and currently at 0.806 GERD:GDP too little emphasis is given to R&D activities. Currently only R10.1 billion (+- US$1.6 billion) is spend on R&D in comparison to a 2005 GDP of R1 250 billion (+- US$208.33) comparing favourably with levels experienced in a country lie Portugal. However in comparison with other countries in Europe like Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom and the Netherlands which spend two percent and more of their GDP on R&D Wholesale Ryan Finley Jersey , South Africa are lagging far behind. Further, of the R10.1 billion available for R&D, only 13% is spend on the advancement of knowledge, whilst the most (60%) is spend on economic development. This indicates that too little is invested on human factors, which is considered a critical element for a successful knowledge based economy. The conclusion is thus that not sufficient funds are allotted for R&I activities in South Africa.


Capability of South Africa to transform scientific and technological inventions into commercial application


The first consideration in determining the capability of South Africa to transform R&D activities into commercial application demands an analysis of human resources availability in the scientific community. The Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (2002) has made a comparison between four countries Wholesale Germaine Pratt Jersey , South Korea, Malaysia, South Africa and Australia regarding the development of human capital as expressed by number of researchers per 1000 of the population as indicated by Table 1. Although performing better than Malaysia on this component, South Africa are performing weak on the broadening of research literacy in the general population. It is a further disturbing fact that South Africa has an aging research workforce. The Department also indicated that the number of science, engineering and technology (SET) practitioners, will vary between 7 and 11 per 1000 of the population in the years 2002 to 2012 and a university throughput in SET of only 2.7% to 3% during the same time frame. The latter figures compare extremely unfavourable with SET graduate throughput in some of the European countries like the United Kingdom (19.5% - 21.0%), Turkey (5.2%) Wholesale Drew Sample Jersey , Switzerland (7.0% - 7.7%), Sweden (13.3% - 13.9%), Spain (12% - 12.6%), Slovenia (8.7% - 9.0%), Portugal (7.4% - 8.2%), Poland (8.3% - 9.0%), Norway (7.7% - 9.3%) and the Netherlands (6.6% - 7.3%) for the same period.


Table 1: Researchers per 1000 of population
Researchers per 1000 of Population
Australia 4.843
South Africa 0.71
Malaysia 0.3
South Korea 2.771


Secondly Wholesale Jonah Williams Jersey , of the top 700 firms, by R&D expenditure in the world, only one namely Sasol is located in South Africa with a US$91 million spending during 2003, whilst more than 80% of these firms come from only five countries, spending more than 82.5% of R&D: the United States (42.3%), Japan (22.0%), Germany (7.6%) Cheap Mark Walton Jersey , the United Kingdom (5.6%) and France (5.0%). The remaining 20% comes from Finland (0.9%), Sweden (2.1%), Switzerland (2.9%), Republic of Korea (1.4%), Taiwan (1.1%), China (0.1%), China[/url] Cheap NFL Jerseys China Cheap New NBA Jerseys Cheap NFL Jerseys Free Shipping Cheap Nike NFL Jerseys Wholesale Jerseys