South Africa Adopts New White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation

Pretoria, South Africa · March 2019 — The South African Cabinet adopted a new White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), marking the most significant overhaul of the country's national innovation policy framework in over a decade. The White Paper was designed to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and to reposition South Africa's science, technology, and innovation system toward inclusive economic growth, job creation, and the transformation of socio-technical systems.

The adoption of the White Paper came at a pivotal moment for South African science policy. Following government changes in June 2019, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) was renamed the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), signalling a deliberate shift from a narrow focus on scientific research toward the systemic application of innovation to address national challenges.

Policy Framework and Objectives

The 2019 White Paper articulated a vision for a South African National System of Innovation (NSI) that would be more responsive, inclusive, and coordinated than its predecessor frameworks. Key objectives included:

• Inclusive Innovation: Ensuring that the benefits of science, technology, and innovation reach all segments of South African society, including historically disadvantaged communities and marginalised regions.
• Fourth Industrial Revolution Readiness: Preparing the workforce, research institutions, and regulatory frameworks for the technological transformations associated with artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, and digital manufacturing.
• Enhanced Coordination: Addressing the fragmentation that had characterised previous innovation policy implementation, with agencies operating under broad mandates but lacking the legal authority, legislative support, or coordination required for cross-sectoral impact.
• Public Value Orientation: Shifting the evaluation of innovation outputs beyond commercial metrics (patents, spin-offs, licensing revenue) to include broader measures of public value and societal impact.

Technology Transfer and NIPMO

The White Paper built upon the institutional infrastructure that South Africa had been developing since the passage of the Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act (IPR Act) in 2008. The National Intellectual Property Management Office (NIPMO), established under the IPR Act, continued to serve as the primary regulator and enabler of technology transfer in the public research sector.

During the 2018–2019 period, NIPMO's activities focused on standardising and professionalising the technology transfer ecosystem across public research institutions. The office managed two key financial instruments:

NIPMO's regulatory oversight included managing mandatory pre-approvals for collaborative R&D agreements to ensure that IP ownership was settled before research commenced. The office also provided training and issued guidelines to help stakeholders interpret and comply with the IPR Act, recognising that many institutions were still developing their technology transfer capabilities.

Alignment with National Development Plan

The White Paper was explicitly aligned with South Africa's National Development Plan (NDP), particularly Outcome 5 (a skilled and capable workforce) and Outcome 6 (efficient and competitive economic infrastructure), as outlined in the 2014–2019 Medium-Term Strategic Framework. This alignment ensured that innovation policy was not pursued in isolation but was integrated into the broader national development agenda.

The NDP had set a target for South Africa to increase its gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GERD) to 1.5% of GDP — a target that remained elusive. By 2018–2019, South Africa's R&D intensity hovered around 0.8% of GDP, well below both the NDP target and the African Union's 1% of GDP aspiration. The White Paper acknowledged this gap and signalled the need for increased investment from both public and private sources.

The Commercialisation Challenge

While the institutional infrastructure for technology transfer had matured significantly — with the near-universal establishment of TTOs at South African universities — surveys and critical reviews from this period noted persistent challenges in commercialising IP through spin-offs and startups. Many institutions had developed the capacity to identify, protect, and manage intellectual property but struggled with the subsequent stages of commercialisation: forming spin-off companies, attracting venture capital, and navigating the regulatory requirements for bringing new products to market.

Regional and Continental Context

South Africa's innovation policy developments in 2018–2019 occurred within a broader continental context shaped by the African Union's Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2024). South Africa remained the continent's largest R&D spender, accounting for a significant share of total African research expenditure alongside Egypt and Nigeria. The country's science councils — including the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Medical Research Council (MRC), and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) — continued to serve as important nodes in the continental research landscape.

In May 2019, The Innovation Hub in Tshwane — Africa's first internationally accredited Science and Technology Park — hosted the International Association of Science Parks (IASP) Africa Division Workshop, bringing together experts from science parks and areas of innovation across the continent to discuss their role as enablers of economic development, technology transfer, and business incubation in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Looking Ahead

The 2019 White Paper set the stage for a decade of South African innovation policy that would need to navigate the tensions between building world-class research infrastructure, ensuring inclusive access to innovation benefits, and responding to rapid technological change. The renaming of DST to DSI symbolised this shift — innovation was no longer framed primarily as the output of scientific research but as a systemic process involving multiple actors, sectors, and societal goals.

For the technology transfer community, the White Paper's emphasis on public value and societal impact suggested that the metrics of success would evolve beyond patent counts and licensing revenue to include measures of how effectively innovation addressed South Africa's most pressing social and economic challenges.

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Sources:

• Department of Science and Innovation, Republic of South Africa, "White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation," March 2019
• Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), "Science and Innovation," Pocket Guide 2018-19
• National Intellectual Property Management Office (NIPMO), nipmo.org.za
• TIP Resource Lab, "South Africa: An Experiment in Innovation Policy for Transformative Change"
• Adams & Adams, "Progress in the Commercialising of Publicly Funded IP," adams.africa