Description:
This data set contains data on the R&D expenditure by province, type of R&D, research fields, socioeconomic objectives, sources of funds and province. R&D personnel data is also included. The data is recorded for each of the following economic sectors of the South African economy: Business, Government, Higher Education, Not-for-Profit Organisations and Science Councils.
Abstract:
The National Survey of Research and Experimental Development (R&D) Survey collects data under strict confidentiality. Aggregated data are used primarily to inform policy and strategic planning at a national level.
The National R&D Survey 2019/20 collected primary data from five survey sectors:
Business sector which consists of companies, business associations and state owned enterprises.
Government sector includes national and provincial departments, research institutes and museums.
Higher Education Institutions sector is made up of universities, universities of technology and private higher education institutions. Some limited supplementary data from HEMIS was used in this sector.
Not-for-Profit Organisations (NPO) sector.
Science Councils sector.
Some general organisational information was collected. The survey however focused on human resources and financial data relating to in-house R&D conducted on the national territory of South Africa.
In-house R&D personnel categories included:
Researchers
Technicians directly supporting R&D
Other personnel directly supporting R&D
Qualifications, gender and race
Full-time-equivalents (FTE) on R&D
In-house R&D expenditure categories included:
Capital expenditure, labour costs and other current expenditure.
Type of R&D (basic research, strategic basic research, applied research and experimental development)
Provincial location
Sources of funds
Research fields (fields of science)
Socio-economic objective
Industry of R&D (Business sector only)
The key users of the data and findings include government departments, especially DSI and the OECD which use survey indicators in their annual time-series publication on Main Science and Technology Indicators (MSTI).
Ad hoc requests for data are also accommodated and inform academic papers, reports and other outputs.
Email survey
Face-to-face interview
Postal survey
Telephone interview
The universe of R&D performers was divided into the following five sectors as per the Survey Report 2001/2 dated September 2004:
Business enterprises (BUS): The business sector of large, medium and small enterprises, including state-owned companies.
Government (GOV): All government departments with an R&D component, government research institutes and museums.
Higher education institutions (HEI): Higher education institutions, namely the 21 universities (and academic hospitals) and 15 Universities of Technology.
Not-for-profit (NPO): Non-governmental and other organisations formally registered as not-for-profit institutions.
Science councils (SCI): The 8 science councils, including the Africa Institute of South Africa, as established through their individual Acts of Parliament.
Note: The SIC codes used in the 2018-19 survey have not changed and were applied to the 2019-20 survey.
The sampling method of each sector is briefly outlined below:
Business Sector: a purposive sampling procedure was employed whereby all known and likely R&D performers were targeted.
Government Sector: was surveyed using a census approach. All national and provincial government departments, research institutions and museums performing R&D were included.
Higher Education Sector: institutions, namely universities and Universities of Technology were included through a census survey.
Not-for-Profit Organisations (NPO) Sector: a purposive sampling procedure was employed whereby all known and likely R&D performers were targeted.
Science Councils Sector: was surveyed using a census approach.
Response rate = 100 x [Responses / (Responses + Non-responses - Out-of-scopes)], where non-responses include refusals and out-of-scopes include closed down, non-R&D performer, return to sender, untraceable, etc.
Business sector response rate = 100 x [263/(263 + 308 - 67)] = 52.2%
Not-for-profit sector response rate = 100 x [29/(29 + 27 - 3)] = 54.7%
Government sector response rate = 100 x [46/(46 + 48 - 5)] = 51.7%
Science Councils sector response rate = 100 x [11/(11 + 0 - 0)] = 100%
Higher Education sector (Public) response rate = 100 x 18/(18 + 6 - 0)] = 75%
Higher Education sector (Private) response rate = 100 x [3/(3+ 3 - 0)] =50%
Overall survey response rate = 100 x [370/(370 + 392 - 75)] = 53.9%
