The National Survey of Research and Experimental Development is a delicious smorgasbord of numbers, a snapshot of South Africa’s National System of Innovation. For those who don’t have the time to read the report (or have an aversion to deciphering the numbers), here are the highlights: 1. In 2014-15, South Africa spent R29.345-billion on research…
Tag: South Africa
SA versus Australia: Rugby, cricket and astronomy
South Africa and Australia have more in common than clear blue skies, rugby and a penchant for burning meat on an open fire. The two countries – whose economies were founded on the mineral resources under the soil and which are separated from European, Asian and North American markets by thousands of kilometres – also…
Telescope not an easy sell amid SA’s poverty scars
IT IS a difficult sales pitch: a multibillion-dollar giant telescope used to investigate phenomena so esoteric years of study are required to understand them. Countries planning to build large scientific infrastructure have to sell the project and its objectives to their citizens. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a good example of this. The telescope…