Analysis of R&D Efficiency in South Africa: A Comparison with Other BRICS Countries

Abstract

South Africa is the largest producer of patents and publications in the African continent. This study, considered the country's production of patents and publications in biotechnology and nanotechnology its top priority areas. In addition, the overall publication and patent outputs in all scientific fields compared with the overall investment in R&D as expressed by the gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) as reported yearly in the country's R&D survey is studied. In addition, this overall data is used to compare South Africa's efficiency in all scientific fields to that of other BRICS countries. Data on R&D expenditure is used as input in the R&D process to achieve this comparison. The study found that, within South Africa, nanotechnology has been doing well on both patent and publications efficiency. The efficiency in terms of publications in this field started to fall slightly in 2013 to be equivalent to that of biotechnology. In context of the BRICS countries, it was found that South Africa has the highest R&D efficiency as measured by both patents and publications. This shows that the productivity is not necessarily a function of resources available.