President Ramaphosa unveils R1 bln Presidential Ph.D. Initiative

Reading Time: 3 minutes

President Cyril Rampahosa has announced the establishment of an initial One-billion-Rand Presidential Ph.D. Initiative, an investment from the National Skills Fund.

Ramaphosa announces this at the inaugural Presidential Science, Technology and Innovation Plenary, taking place at the Centre for Science and Industrial Research in Pretoria.

The theme for this year is: “Igniting conversations about science, People, Partnerships and Priorities for the Decadal plan”.

The President says that for Science Technology and Innovation to effectively serve South Africa’s economy and society it is critical to aggressively and strategically invest in education and skills development by both the public and private sector.

VIDEO | Inaugural presidential plenary on science, technology and innovation:

Government, academia, civil society and industry leaders converged at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria. They gather to deliberate on the progress of the National System of Innovation and challenges in the sector.

More than 200 attendees also explore ways for Skills, Technology and Innovation to impact positively on the country’s economy.

In line with this, President Cyril Ramaphosa says the establishment of an initial One-billion-Rand Presidential Ph.D. Initiative, an investment from the National Skills Fund.

“The aim of the first phase is to expose our country’s brightest young minds to cutting-edge thinking and research by negotiating opportunities at world-leading universities and research centres. Their studies will be linked to large-scale and established research programmes, The programme will build critical skills in areas like artificial intelligence research, advanced biotechnology, fuel cell development, batteries and other storage, and next-generation mining.”

The President implores the private sector and international partners to assist in growing the investment for the Presidential Ph.D. Initiative fund to R5 billion by 2030. He laments the fact that in 2021 gross expenditure on research and development in South Africa was 0.6% of GDP, far below the target of one point five. In comparison, he says the US 2022 spent 2.6% and South Korea 5% of their GDP on R&D.

“At the South African Investment Conference this year Minister Blade Nzimande presented the early results of the Innovation Fund initiative, where the state has partnered with businesses in supporting technology-based SMMEs to commercialise their products. So far, through this initiative, we have succeeded in attracting R6 from the private sector for every R1 invested by the state. Building on our many strengths, we can do much more.”

Continuing on a positive note, Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande says South Africa has been making strides in the science and technology sector since the implementation of the White Paper in 2019. In March 2021 an Inter-Ministerial Committee was established to ensure science, technology and innovation policy coherence, as well as programme and budget coordination in the South African national system of innovation. In November 2022 cabinet adopted the STI Decadal Plan to guide the first 10 years of implementing the White Paper.

Nzimande says a holistic government approach to the sector has been adopted.

“Working with the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation in government we have also made significant progress in integrating STI into the planning of government as a whole part of this was to delineate the roles of various departments that have got innovation-related mandates to make sure that we build synergy amongst STI programmes in government we have also built an important mechanism which we call budget coordination for Science, Technology and Innovation across government departments so that we are able to better synergise the resources of the department.”

The hope is that the plenary on STI will come up with solutions that will address the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality, that South Africans continue to face. As Nzimande says, “It ain’t science as long as it does not touch the lives of ordinary people as well”.