South African National Survey of Research and Experimental Development: key sector results and trends: higher education sector R&D at a glance. Fact sheet 39

Abstract

South Africa's higher education (HE) sector plays a pivotal role in the national system of innovation-it houses the largest R&D workforce in the country with two-thirds of total R&D personnel working in this sector. This fact sheet shows that in 2019/20, higher education was responsible for 41.4% of total R&D spending in the country, overtaking business sector spending on R&D. The natural sciences, technology and engineering, and the social sciences continue to dominate higher education research. Researchers from other countries make up almost a quarter of the total in higher education, most of them postgraduate students.