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.
