EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In July 2007 The Department of Science and Technology (DST) adopted a Ten-Year Innovation Plan (2008-2018). The 10-year innovation plan builds on the foundations laid by the National Research and Development (R&D) Strategy adopted in 2002.

The purpose of the Ten-Year Innovation Plan is to help drive South Africa’s transformation towards a knowledge-based economy, in which the production and dissemination of knowledge leads to economic benefits and enriches all fields of human endeavour. The Ten-Year Plan is underpinned by five grand challenges, one of which is called ‘Science and Technology for Global Change with an emphasis on climate change’ (DST, 2007). 

The impact of the Global Change Grand Challenge over the next decade will be measured by three primary indicators:-

•           the extend to which scientific understanding of global change has improved as a result of South African research efforts;

•           the extend to which South Africa has contributed to the development and deployment of innovative technologies that support appropriate responses to the negative impacts of environmental changes, particularly climate change;

•           the extend to which decision-makers have used improved scientific understanding and technological development to achieve sustainable development goals in South Africa and Africa.

The current Global Change implementation landscape is characterised by the following:-

·         Following the adoption of the National R&D strategy in 2002, South Africa has invested in the development and implementation of strategies that takes advantage of the geographical and scientific advantages offered by South Africa. South Africa is a major investor in Global Change research taking into account investments in the key science platforms of astronomy, Antarctica, marine sciences and palaeontology;

·         In South Africa there exists significant political will at regional, national and provincial levels to address sustainability issues and especially the threats and opportunities posed by climate change. This includes investment in negotiations at many international forums and with strong cross linkages to trade and other economic negotiations and considerations. South Africa’s and even SADC negotiating positions will benefit greatly from an improved and more coherent science base to inform policy. National to local scale development planning will also benefit if effective channels of communication can be opened to fast track scientific knowledge to policy makers and implementers.

·         Lack of detailed information on capacity, investment, influence, outputs, and impacts in both the areas of Science for Global Change as well as Technology Development to support effective responses to the impacts of negative Global Change;

·         Initial high-level assessments as well as anecdotal evidence suggest that there is a significant base of science-based programmes (or fragments thereof) that fall under the Global Change umbrella;

·         In addition to DST investments, significant resources are directed towards science and technology for global change by other players in the National System of Innovation and considerable opportunities exist for tapping into additional sources of investment;

·         There exists no focused “Global Change” national institution to co-ordinate research direction and priority in this multi- and trans-disciplinary field of science. The challenges of global change demand innovative thinking, tools and action that is not discipline-bound. As a consequence, aspects of global change science are carried out piecemeal by a wide range of research groups;

·         There are a number of important large-scale research projects that involves co-operation between South Africa and other nations (both on a bilateral as well as multilateral basis). In addition, there is considerable interest in enhancing research co-operation with South Africa on areas that have continental and global utility;

·         South Africa has existing technological capabilities in a range of areas that can be classified under the umbrella of adaptation technologies;

·         Notwithstanding the impressive collection of projects, South Africa does not have a unified, common, and ambitious vision on how South Africa can contribute towards improved scientific understanding of global change as well as how it can contribute to technological development; Research programmes remain fragmented and small-scale with limited incentives for collaboration (although this is changing);

·         Feedback from both the scientific and policy and decision-making communities confirmed the existence of a considerable ‘knowledge chasm’ in the area of global change;

·         Due to the lack of a long-term ambitious vision, the approach to building the required human, institutional, and infrastructural platforms is ad-hoc and no effective mechanism currently exist that can exploit possible synergies;

·         There are considerable human capital challenges which constitute the primary implementation constraint for enhancing South African effort in global change related science and technology. This national lack of capacity impacts on the ability to both implement the research programme (i.e. finding researchers) and to implement the research outputs (in the state departments). Notwithstanding important efforts to build capacity, particularly amongst blacks and women, these efforts remain ad-hoc with the existence of considerable barriers for scale-up;

·         South Africa is well-connected to continental efforts as well as international efforts;

·         Significant efforts have taken place over the last few years to facilitate integration and consolidation of global change research efforts in South Africa. However, there is still a lack of significant large-scale flagship South African projects that can galvanise high levels of public and political interest and support;

·       Sporadic and sometimes large flows of incoming and pending funding for mainly implementation-oriented projects (i.e. technology development) to address sustainability, some of which is already saturating the capacity of the region’s science capacity.

To enable South Africa to make the area of ‘Science and Technology for Global Change’ a meaningful grand challenge, ten key actions will comprise the implementation framework:-

1.                  The development of an ambitious and comprehensive 10-year Global Change Science Plan for the broader National System of Innovation;

2.                  A complementary 10-year foresight and roadmap for innovation in adaptation technologies (with a focus on adaptation technologies related to climate change and its associated impacts);

3.                  The development of suitable and improved governance and management arrangements including the re-positioning of the South African Scientific Committee for Global Change and the introduction of a Global Change funders forum.

4.                  Due to the fundamental importance of human capital development for the achievement of the Grand Challenge, a Standing Committee on Human Capital Development for Global Change will be established under the South African Scientific Committee on Global Change;

5.                  An integrated and consolidated plan for reducing the ‘knowledge chasm’ and building the science-policy interface is required. Here the action will be two-fold - (a) the science-policy interface which is top down and (b) the science-society interface which is bottom-up. Efforts to address the latter would focus on involving, motivating and empowering citizens and institutions to do research, adapt and act.

6.                  Existing science programmes exist that provide the building blocks for the Grand Challenge. These will be strengthened and where necessary additional programmes initiated using existing instruments such as the South African Research Chairs programme, the Centres of Excellence programme. However, the grand challenge will also require purpose-built instruments including flagship large-scale integrative projects;

7.                  South Africa’s Global Change science and technology programme will be strongly aligned to continental and global efforts. On the continent, the DST will work in close co-operation with the ICSU Global Change research effort and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). On the global level it will continue to strengthen its interaction with the family of key international global change programmes, the Global Research Alliance, and through enhanced bilateral and multi-lateral programmes.

8.                  A national monitoring system (using data from the Research Information Management System - RIMS) will provide a scorecard on annual investments and inputs complemented by an indication of the cumulative impact of the investments and inputs. An independent evaluation of the impact of the Global Change grand challenge will be undertaken at the end of every three-year cycle (March 2011, March 2014, March 2017);

9.                  Enhanced information dissemination, exchange and collaboration will be crucial and a complementary set of proven as well as state-of-the-art electronic and non-electronic systems will be initiated;

10.              The infrastructure and observation requirements to support the implementation of the Global Change Science Plan will be factored into the 10-year infrastructure plan, the Space Grand Challenge, and the South African Earth Observation Strategy.