Improved Funding

In the absence of serious local funding for research and innovation, much of Africa will remain industrially underdeveloped. Consequently, African researchers’ rely on external donors, aid agencies and grant-giving bodies to sponsor their work research efforts that don’t guarantee relevance to local developmental needs. To reverse this trend, African nations need to fund STI-related research more aggressively. Current investment levels in STI must go up; in fact it has been argued that to achieve meaningful economic and social development, a country must invest at least 1 to 4 per cent of its gross national product in science and technology research. It would be a mistake for policy advisers to concentrate too much on the research element of R&D spending without giving adequate attention to spending on development.

A new approach to University-Industry Linkage

While the academia and industry each have their individual and unique roles to play in development, bringing these actors together is paramount for STI-led development. Academia and industry could be brought together through consultancies, contracts, research or network partnerships. It is not enough for a country or region to simply increase the total number of consultancies and contracts between academia and industry. This is because such arrangements are generally myopic, focusing narrowly on specific interests. By their very nature, they preclude serendipitous discovery and seldom generate publications or postgraduate work. Though they can supplement individual academic salaries and help retain staff, many are not officially reported, and may happen at the expense of teaching and research.

Network partnerships across academia, industry, government and international development partners would be significantly more beneficial. Besides serving as instruments to address innovation market failures, these industry-academia-government partnerships could also act as mechanisms for ‘informal’ knowledge transfer.

In the UK, for instance, innovative solutions are provided by academia for many real-life industrial problems under the Knowledge Transfer Partnership programme which supports joint supervision of PhDs by university and industry. As a consequence of the extensive policy support for industry-academia relationship, it is not surprising that the degree of interaction with industry from UK universities has increased. Technology transfer is thriving in the UK, as reflected, among other indicators, by the increasing number of universities that have commercialization office activities (23 universities before 1990, 116 universities by 2002), and by the number of spin-out companies created per $1billion sponsored research expenditure compared to the US. Also the scientific outputs from university-industry research collaborations have been increasing in the UK. For instance, Calvert and Patel (2003) showed that between the early 1980s and late 1990s, joint university industry papers increased from about a quarter to around a half of all industrial scientific output in the UK.

The following examples from South Africa illustrate the power of strategic industry-academia network partnerships. Indeed, they exemplify the glory of the matrimony among science, technology and innovation.

“The Tree Protection Co-operative Programme is a biotechnology research network of large paper firms and small timber producers, working on tree pathogens with academic partners at the University of Pretoria, to the benefit of all.

“The university research unit is building an international scientific reputation by producing a large number of postgraduate students and accredited publications. It has become a sponsored 'centre of excellence' that attracts considerable government research funding.

“The industry partners depend for their competitive edge on the costly research and development and the risk-management strategies the network provides. For example, the university researchers provide DNA technology to produce trees resistant to pests and pathogens.

“A second example of a successful strategic partnership is the remote sensing Multi-Sensor Microsatellite Imager project. In this government-funded research network, university, industry and government partners work together to design micro-satellites that can supply affordable high-resolution imagery to African governments. The images can help monitor, regulate and manage resources, for example, water distribution, crop management and settlement infrastructure.

“A Stellenbosch University laboratory conducts fundamental research for the network. A spin-off company manages the technology development, while application research managed by a government science council informs the design. Finally, a Belgian university and industrial partner develop specific technical components.

“Mutually beneficial network partnerships like these — where university, industry and intermediary partners work towards a shared objective — generate knowledge and technological innovation for all.”

They help universities harness the innovation potential of their researchers while still maintaining academic integrity. They meet industrial needs for technological progress, and also contribute to national development.

Understanding the Role of Politics and Policy

In the words of Kenya’s Minister for Science and Technology, "The first step to inculcating science and technology into our national ethos is the recognition by parliament that science, technology and innovation are critical tools for policy formulation."  That is an important pointer to the fact that even politicians would not want their countries to be left out of the global knowledge economy, and are realising that science can contribute to virtually every field of public policy.

African nations ought to become more aggressive in their approach in mainstreaming STI into national development. Universities have to become more proactive by pressuring politicians. Indeed, parliamentarians must be well informed if they are to stimulate, formulate and scrutinise science-related policies, and ensure such policies drive sustainable development.

Promotion of Interdisciplinary Research

Interdisciplinary programs sometimes arise from a shared conviction that the traditional disciplines are unable or unwilling to address an important problem. They may also arise from new research developments, such as nanotechnology, which cannot be addressed without combining the approaches of two or more disciplines. Examples also include quantum information processing, which amalgamates elements of quantum physics and computer science; and bioinformatics, which combines molecular biology with computer science.

This kind of thinking has led to the establishment of Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IRCs) in several universities to tackle research challenges in basic science. A typical example is the IRC in Polymer Science and technology (Polymer IRC) that combines people across four Universities, giving a multi-disciplinary approach to the research.

Africa should also take up this challenge by putting more emphasis on research that leverages on many disciplines to proffer solution to our economic problems. The creation of African interdisciplinary centres of excellence (ICoEs) in research and development will foster STI-led development by “doing science with real impact.” The benefits accruable from the formation of these include leveraging investment in African development; recruiting Africa's best and brightest students and scholars to address the continent's real problems (food, water, shelter, health, public policy, entrepreneurship, energy and the environment) through interdisciplinary teaching and research; strengthening the NIS by working with industry, business and government to close Africa's skills gap by ensuring graduates have the capabilities that employers are looking for, and that Africa needs.

Some Directions for Immediate Action

It is important to assess the environment within which African researchers work and how this affects their productivity. Factors such as organisational climate, work load, experience, and attitude towards research are important. The development of STI indicators for the continent is long overdue. The recent appointment of national focal institutions by NEPAD under the STI indicators initiative is a particularly welcome one. However, beyond arrangements and commitments, funds must also be made available. Finally, an assessment of innovation capability in industry would be very useful.

In all of these areas, the National Centre for Technology Management (NACETEM), Nigeria’s only STI policy research agency is well-posited to lead action. In fact, NACETEM has been designated as NEPAD’s implementing agency in Nigeria for the African STI indicators initiative. Over the last few years, the Centre has consistently monitored innovation capability in Nigeria’s industrial sector, and we believe that this can be done in all African countries.

Conclusion

There is a clear relationship between countries’ performance in STI and their economy. An important contribution to Africa’s quest for STI-led development is the new model of the relationship between the science, technology and innovation (STI) triad and economic development within a nation or region. African researchers and institutions should aggressively pursue research collaborations to address innovation market failures, effective resource utilisation and act as mechanisms for ‘informal’ knowledge transfer. Institutions and individual researchers in Africa also need to be aware of the role that politics and policy play in facilitating the STI-development connection. Capabilities, therefore, need to be developed in these regards. Furthermore, in formulating research agendas, it must be borne in mind that two or more academic disciplines integrating their insights to work together in pursuit of a common demand-driven goal will yield better results than singular efforts. The role of interdisciplinary demand-driven research cannot be over-emphasised.