Committed to harnessing SA’S potential
Businesses actively participate in a national study that is aimed at informing the country’s innovation policy
The World Bank 2017 SA Economic Update “Innovation for Productivity and Inclusiveness” report argues that SA has large untapped innovation potential.
The report says harnessing this potential through an improved business climate for start-ups, skilled immigration, trade facilitation, competition in ICT, and easier access to research and development (R&D) tax incentives would significantly help in creating jobs and reducing poverty.
However, this requires effective policy and government decisionmaking, which requires high-quality evidence. The department of science & technology (DST), as a partner within the national statistics system, is mandated to oversee the collection of statistics on science, technology and innovation.
The Centre for Science, Technology & Innovation Indicators (CESTII) at the Human Sciences Research Council performs national business innovation surveys on behalf of the DST.
“These surveys are based on the recommended methodology outlined in the Oslo Manual, an international best practice guide. Surveys require a large and dedicated team of fieldworkers, information technologists, data analysts and statisticians,” says Cheryl Moses, Business Innovation Survey project manager at CESTII.
“We rely on the time and energy of our respondents to provide accurate data as timeously as possible, so results can be released as quickly as possible. The SA government has introduced a variety of support mechanisms, both financial and nonfinancial, to promote innovation.
“From innovations in large firms to innovation in small- and medium-sized enterprises, these mechanisms are helping to make it easier for firms to access the resources to push forward in their drive to improve their products and processes.
“However, government needs to be informed by what innovation activity is taking place in businesses, how innovation occurs at firmlevel, what can be done to enhance innovation capacity, and what the obstacles to innovation are, which the survey examines,” she says.
“With the results from the survey we are able to provide government with practical, usable information. For example, many businesses say they don’t receive funding from government for their innovation activities. There are various questions we ask respondents, the answers to which we are able to use to inform government policy, which all fits into the national system of innovation.”
Moses says people think that innovation is only about creating new products, but it is much broader than that.
“What we at CESTII do is just a portion of how innovation fits into the whole system. The different types of innovation include formal and informal, which has to do with the economy; then you have social innovation, which has to do with the human side of things and their relationships.
“At CESTII, in measuring the innovation capacity in SA firms, we deal with formal innovation that has to do with how businesses and enterprises perform in the sphere of innovation.”
The CESTII is still in the field completing the Business Innovation Survey, covering the period 2014-2016. Moses says fieldwork began in September 2017.
“You might think we are still old school, because we do a postal survey, but we cover such a broad spectrum of companies.
“Once we have dispatched the questionnaire, we start with the fieldwork follow-up. So we are still in the field and are about 60 days away from closing the survey, which will be at the end of August.
“Unfortunately, as this is not a mandatory survey and is not administered by Statistics SA, many companies choose not to sacrifice the time necessary to complete the survey. However, it is important for businesses to complete the questionnaire in order for us to obtain comprehensive data.
“An advantage for respondents is that we will be able to provide them with a bird’s-eye view of what types of innovation activities are happening in their particular sector of the economy and how their company compares with other companies of similar size.
“Furthermore, we ask companies what it is they lack in the innovation space and what the barriers to innovative activities are, so we are able to take the results and make policy recommendations to government on ways to support the development of innovation among private sector companies.”
Moses says information supplied by companies is confidential.
“All the published results are aggregated data, because we work under strict confidentiality. No company will be able to be identified from the published data.”