Introduction

South Africa is one of the strongest economies in Africa and key to the economic and political development of Sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank 2007). In relation to the global arena, South Africa has been variously categorized, but the central thrust is one of considerable economic potential, with significant constraints imposed by the legacy of the past. It has generally been grouped alongside middle-income countries like Brazil and India in terms of its strong but highly uneven capacity to participate in global technological innovation in the era of a ‘knowledge economy’ (Albuquerque 2001, UNDP 2001). The general thrust of these analyses is to emphasize the potential of the South African national system of innovation to compete in the global knowledge economy, but that socioeconomic developmental demands require critical efforts for long-term sustainability, and may become a binding constraint.

After the end of Apartheid, and with the transition to a democratic government in South Africa since 1994, there have been changes in governance, in the economy and in science, technology and innovation policy. Unlike many other countries where change has been a more gradual process, the transition was an opportunity for a dramatic break with the fragmented system of the past, towards a systematic attempt to put in place new policy, structures and mechanisms to meet democratic goals.

South Africa is distinctive in that new science and technology policies were systematically redesigned in the mould of a national innovation system (NIS) approach.