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

This is according to a report published by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in September 2022.

Is this a trend? 

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’s South African National Survey of Research and Experimental Development.

The latest survey for 2020/21 will be released in December.

Who is funding R&D now?

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).

Which sectors lost business R&D funding? 

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.

Funding for manufacturing also dropped from R4.4-billion in 2015 to R3.5-billion in 2019.

Mining R&D spending dropped by 44% between 2018 and 2019 – from R1.748-billion (2018) to R686-million (2019). This was “a direct result of the sale of mining companies and their assets or restructuring in R&D performing mining entities”, the HSRC survey noted.

Annual report

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.