National survey of research and experimental development (2009/10 Fiscal year): main results 2009/10

The National Survey of Research and Experimental Development 2009/10 provides information on research and experimental development (R&D) stocks and flows in five sectors, namely government (GOV), science councils (SCI), higher education (HE), business (BUS) and the not-for-profit organisations (NPO) for the 2009/10 financial year. The information consists of expenditureon R&D and the supply of R&D personnel. The level of GERD, at current prices, amounted to R20.955 billion during 2009/10, compared to R21.041 billion during 2008/09. In current Rand value, GERD decreased by R86 million to R20.955 billion during2009/10 in contrast to the steady growth seen in previous years. GERD as percentage of GDP stood at 0.87% in 2009/10, a decrease of 0.05 percentage points from 0.92% recorded in the 2008/09 survey. Generally, GERD has been growing in South Africa, but at a declining rate. Over the four-year period prior to 2009/10, this rate was 1.7 percentage points per annum. However, the 2009/10 reference year is the fi rst year since 1993/94 to register a decline in GERD: in 2009/10, the year-on-year growth in GERD amounted to -0.4%. There has been a large year-on-year decrease in R&D expenditure of 9.7% in the business sector, a sector that performs the bulk of R&D in South Africa. Other sectors that reported negative growth in R&D expenditure werethe government and not-for-profi t sectors, decreasing by 6.4% and 21.4% respectively. The positive growth of 21.7% in higher education sector and of 10.2% in science councils sector appeared inadequate to offset the larger decreases in the sectors mentioned above. The sources of funding for R&D remained largely "own funding" and the proportion of foreign funding of R&Dhas, as in the previous reference year (2008/09), shown a small but steady increase. Of the total R&D personnel, 40 797 were researchers in 2009/10, an increase of 842 from 2008/09, measured in headcounts of researchers, technicians and other personnel directly supp