South African National Survey of Research and Experimental Development: key sector results and trends: higher education sector R&D at a glance. Fact sheet 30

Abstract

South Africa's higher education (HE) sector plays a pivotal role in the national system of innovation- both as a performer of research (whether basic, applied, or experimental development), but also as a capacity builder of researchers from South Africa and abroad. This fact sheet shows that in 2018/19, one-third of South Africa's annual R&D spending, about R13.2 billion, took place within HE sector, with the majority of this spending oriented towards the natural sciences, technology, and engineering. A key trend is that almost a quarter of researchers are not South African, although most of these are postgraduate students.