NDP calls for science to be prioritised

THE NATIONAL Development Plan (NDP) correctly recognises that for our country to achieve the UN Sustainable Development 2030 Goals, we must place Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) at the centre of our developmental agenda.

The World Bank reiterated this view recently when it advised that SA needed to put more emphasis on science and innovation to achieve a sustainable growth trajectory.

Although its primary responsibility is to promote science, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) cannot, on its own, achieve this important task. The involvement of all stakeholders – business, labour, academia and government – is a vital necessity for SA to place science at the centre of its development.

In fact, no government has ever achieved the necessary scientific and technological advances without the co-operation of one or a combination of these sectors.

Our society has come to appreciate technological discoveries that emanate from the sciences without necessarily accepting the principles that underpin such discoveries. For us to use science as a motive force for development, this needs to change.

Society as a whole needs to embrace scientific research as an important element of creating a better world characterised by low unemployment and reduced poverty and inequality.

Since the adoption of the first White Paper on Science and Technology in 1996, we have recorded significant progress in growing the national system of innovation.

As we deliberate on how far we have come since then, we also need to question whether the National System of Innovation (NSI) as it is, will be responsive to the future we want to build.

Accordingly, one of the questions this STI summit must respond to is what must be done practically to ensure our national system of innovation becomes more inclusive at all levels?

The inclusivity we require is not only limited to human capacity. It straddles the entirety of human knowledge and inclusion of alternative knowledge systems.

The dominant culture in the field of science made the basic assumption that every question has a true answer, and that it could only be attained through a particular method, while any and everything discovered outside this method, was false and backward.

A positive development is that since 1996 business has been the largest performer of research and development, placing SA ahead of other emerging economies such as Chile and Turkey.

The question is: What mechanisms should we put in place to bridge the gap between invention and commercialisation? The new White Paper is aimed at helping SA benefit from global developments such as rapid technological advancement and geopolitical and demographic shifts, as well as to respond to the threats associated with some of these global trends.

So we now have an opportunity to ensure that SA becomes one of the centres for Science, Technology and Innovation in the world.