South Africa needs more R&D projects to be competitive

According to Mustapha, the past decade of R if it's below, it's probably a developing country." How much R&D is performed by the business sector is linked to whether multinationals and foreign funders consider the country a good location for R&D. It's also about investment strategies in new technologies-whether local companies decide to invest in R&D or to license technologies from elsewhere. We've shed R&D personnel The decline in performance abilities in R&D is far more critical than the loss of spending, according to Mustapha. "While you can switch expenditure on again, depending on economic circumstances, it's far more difficult to replace personnel. We need to rebuild all of that expertise, and building expertise means that you are actually a step further back." South Africa shines in space science Space science has emerged as the flagship science of South Africa. "We spend a lot on space science, and we also get cited a lot for the research we do, so that's probably the one standout area." Other important areas for R&D are converging technologies like nanotechnology and biotechnology, and HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB. The 2019/20 survey results show that the greatest amount of R&D activity in research fields takes place in the medical and health sciences (21.5%), followed by the social sciences (16.9%).