Business enterprise expenditure on R&D (BERD) represents the component of gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) incurred by enterprises or units in the private sector. R&D performance by South Africa's formal business sector impacts economic growth, GDP, technology development and competitiveness. This fact sheet shows that BERD is decreasing year-on-year. In the last periods surveyed, R&D spend by business decreased from R14.448 billion in 2018/19 to R10.704 billion in 2019/20. The business sector devoted the largest share of its R&D expenditure to the natural sciences, technology, and engineering fields (98.6%). A higher proportion of business R&D spend was devoted to applied research as compared to basic and experimental research.
Human Sciences Research Council (Wed,) studied this question.