Taking Stock of South Africa's Technology Transfer Activities

Innovation is crucial for South Africa's economic growth and competitiveness. To enhance technological innovation, scientific research and development (R&D) is necessary. As the enabler, government playing the role of an “Entrepreneurial State”, is required to invest significantly in R&D and in the institutional platforms that drive innovation. To reap the full benefits of government R&D investment and grow the knowledge economy, South Africa must accelerate the transfer and commercialization of results from publicly funded research in ways that benefit the country. It is on this basis that, among other measures, the Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act (IPRAct) of 2008,was introduced to incentivize actors in the research-to-innovation value chain to improve their approaches towards identifying and managing intellectual property (IP) for eventual commercial and social use, as well as their interface with the private sector and international partners on these aspects. Effective policy making requires evidence and the inaugural South African National Survey of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer at Publicly Funded Research Institutions is one such instrument. The survey was embarked on to establish a number of baseline indicators that are required to track overall activity in Intellectual Property (IP) management and Technology Transfer (TT).

KEY FINDINGS

The survey was sent to all 'institutions' as defined in the Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act (IPR Act), which are the 23 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the 10 Schedule 1 institutions or Science Councils (SCs). Valid responses were obtained from 24 institutions. Of these, 23 indicated that they have either established a dedicated office of technology transfer (OTT), have dedicated TT individuals or are members of a regional office. Management of technologies, patent families, trade mark families, registered design families and new patent applications filed increased more rapidly than the increase in research expenditure, which indicates acceleration of these activities relative to research expenditure. On average, 100 new technologies were added annually between 2011 and 2014 to the portfolio managed by respondent institutions. There has been a quadrupling in the actual number of licences executed per year in the period. Of significance is that more than 88% of this revenue accrued consistently each year to the same four institutions that have well established TTFs. The majority of IP transactions yielded less than R100 000 per year. In total, 45 start-up companies were formed over the period to commercialise the institutions' technology, 73% of which were based on publicly funded IP. As at 2014: the majority (53.5%) of all staff in the OTTs had four years or less TT experience; females comprised 62.5% of the TT staff in HEIs and 61.9% in SCs; Black, Coloured and Indian/Asian groups together represented 56.4% of TTF staff in HEIs, and 65.2% in Scs. Viewed in the context of overall trends in the racial and skills composition of the labour force in the country, these statistics show that there is clear room for improvement. Most institutions are performing a range of activities within the categories of IP management, commercialisation and administration. Noticeably, enforcement is less active. Institutions have indicated that they required 19% and 50% additional funding in 2014 for TT operations and IP expenditure, respectively.