7 the state of science in south africa
H E A L T H A N D M E D I C A L S C I E N C E S
increased service load on clinicians, which 7 262 researchers, technicians and support
has eroded their ability to spend time on staff involved in the medical and health sci-
research, and the attrition in the number of ences in 2006/7. (This does not include sci-
clinical researchers. This is a matter of con- entists working in the biological sciences).
cern, given South Africa’s research gains in Of these, 64% were researchers, just less
this sector in recent decades. than 20% were technicians, and about 17%
were made up of support staff. Of all R&D
Over the same period even greater de-
staff, more than half were women, while
clines (more than a third) have been noted 48% of the researchers were women (Table
in the not-for-profit sector’s overall health 7.1). This is higher than the ratio in most
and medical R&D expenditure, as well as countries. The majority of the scientists
expenditure by socio-economic objective. were working in the higher education and
However, as stated in the National Survey of business sectors, followed by the science
Research and Experimental Development councils and government. It is important
of 2004/2005 the reason for this is largely to note that the MRC has 45 collaborative
methodological; many of the not-for-profit research units, most of which are staffed by
researchers were reclassified into other cat- scientists in the higher education sector.
egories, thus accounting for the steep drop
in all modalities. Science council R&D ex-
7.5 Scientific outputs
penditure on health and medical research
remained constant over the fiscal years
2003/4 and 2004/5 at 11.8% and 11.9% of
In measuring scientific outputs, the number
the total science council R&D expenditure.
of scholarly articles produced by South Afri-
However, the proportion spent on health
can scientists provides a good sense of the
and medical R&D by socio-economic ob-
productivity as well as the quality of the dif-
jective by science councils increased from
ferent fields of health and medical research,
7.7% in fiscal year 2003/4 to 10.2% in fis-
indicated in Table 7.2. All information on
cal year 2004/5. This reflects a reduction in
this topic is derived from a draft report pro-
expenditure related to the advancement
duced by the Centre for Research on Sci-
of knowledge (basic research) and an in-
ence and Technology (CREST) based at the
crease in expenditure on so-called applied
University of Stellenbosch, South African
research.
clinical research outputs in the recent past
– what do they tell us about enhancing the
future system? For purposes of discussion,
7.4 Numbers of health and
the health and medical sciences are divided
medical researchers in South
into basic health sciences, clinical health
Africa
sciences and public/community health sci-
ences. Most of the journal articles published
Based on the most recent survey conducted by South African health scientists are to be
by the Department of Science and Technol- found in the clinical health sciences; basic
ogy (DST) and the HSRC, South Africa had health sciences account for about a quarter
202
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