Combining data mining and human expertise for making decisions, sense and policies

A major challenge facing management in developed countries is improving the performance of knowledge and service workers, i.e. the decision and policy makers. In a developing country such as South Africa, with a well‐developed business sector, this need, especially in government, is even more crucial. South Africa has to face many new challenges in the 21st century ‐ growing environmental concerns, massive social and economic inequalities, high occurrences of HIV, low productivity, massive unemployment and the nation’s evolving role in Africa, amongst others. The importance of a sound science and technology policy framework to address these pressing issues cannot be overemphasised This paper discusses the construction of a knowledge‐base from a data repository concerning a South African National Research and Technology (NRT) Audit. This knowledge‐base is to be used as an aid when developing a science and technology policy framework for South Africa. The knowledge‐base is constructed using the cooperative ...