NRF, HSRC & SANSA 2019/20 Annual Reports

Meeting report

National Research Foundation (NRF) on its 2019/20 Annual Report

The NRF gave an overview of performance of the five-year period (Strategy 2020). One of their strategic objectives is to promote globally-competitive research and innovation through the representation of NRF-funded black participation and female participants. The second objective is to enhance strategic commitments; the third is to provide best practice systems in support of grant-making, review and evaluation; the fourth is to establish and maintain research and infrastructure platforms. The fifth strategic objective is grow NRF influence, impact and reputation, which leads to a reputable and influential agency shaping the science and technology system – together with optimising NRF’s return on investment. The NRF seeks to develop a scientifically literate and engaged society through entrenched science engagement and to improve NRF talent management, which will represent a skilled, committed and representative NRF research and technical workforce.

The NRF also presented on their overview of performance 2019/20 targets together with their financial performance and audit outcomes. The NRF gave an overview of their performance on their key performance indicators (KPIs) for 2019/20, together with an overview of their overall 2019/20 against KPIs in APP.

In terms of financial performance, the total actual income during the 2019/20 was about R3.944bn, which represents a negative 12.1% variance from the budgeted R4.485bn that was expected. The actual total expenditure was R3.913bn instead of the budgeted R4.508bn, which represents a negative 13.2% variance.

Some of the current and future risks and challenges faced by NRF include:

• Disruptions to the academic calendar affecting completion time, hence there may be a requirement for extension support which places financial strain on the NRF.
• Operational constraints faced by researchers due to COVID-19 lockdown regulations – especially research that is laboratory-based or field-based.
• Higher demands for funding due to greater needs of students and researchers.
• Reduction in budget allocations impacting on ability to expand and transform the system.

[See presentation document for more details]

Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) on its 2019/20 Annual Report

The HSRC gave an overview presentation of its overall performance, audit outcomes and financial performance, important areas of work and also any identified risks and mitigation. The HSRC developed Strategic Outcome Oriented Goals which include Knowledge Advancement, Contribution to Development and Social Progress in Africa, Enhanced Skills, preserved data & knowledge, and transforming at senior level to reflect the national demographic composition with respect to race and gender.

The HSRC achieved 16 out of 23 of their predetermined objectives. The HSRC’s audit outcomes included unqualified audit opinion issued by the AG. They had clean audit, with no material adjustments to the annual financial statement and no material findings on the usefulness and reliability of the reported performance information for research, development and innovation. The Identified Risks that HSRC found were relevance and impact. They provided for mitigation measure for the identified risks.

[See presentation document for more details]

South African National Space Agency (SANSA) on its 2019/20 Annual Report

SANSA gave a presentation on their strategic context, performance information, together with SANSA’s international partnerships and engagements which provided for student development opportunities. SANSA gave a brief overview of their operational information and also provided an overview of their future plans by ensuring they retain R250 million for new initiatives and R4.47 billion of funding for space infrastructure hub they plan to build.

The Agency’s expenditure breakdown entailed R40m being spent on capital cost, R125m employment and R115m on operational cost. SANSA received an unqualified audit opinion with findings.

[See presentation document for more details]

Discussion

Ms J Mananiso (ANC) thanked the Chairperson and appreciated the presentations that were made and appreciated the fact that the different departments are hard at work when they are given responsibility of the public.

She hoped that although HSRC has unqualified audit outcome, they have put measures in place to deal with whatever that was identified by the Auditor-General (AG) when auditing the Council. Secondly, she referred the issue of indigenous languages to all the entities, saying that it was not addressed. She requested that if the organisations would want to deal with inequality they should note the issue of language; they should diversify their use of indigenous languages so that everyone may be on board, especially with programmes of civil society. She said that in all the organisations there is an issue of gender transformation. She wanted to know if there are plans in place to deal with those matters to ensure that women are being included, including people with disability and other races, together with the LGBTI community.

She pointed out that during the presentations one of the presenters highlighted that COVID-19 brought the attention for the need for science and innovation and its importance and that she shares the same sentiment that during this period it has showed that science is important. However, she believes that they still need to strengthen their society-building programmes so that as they take South Africa international they are able to take the society at large, and to acknowledge the fact that internationally they are being recommended but those who are within the country do not understand their role and function. It is important that within that the issues of communication are dealt with, together with awareness in terms of what they are doing in such role and function in South Africa.

She had questions with schools engaging out with civil societies programmes that dealt with sex and reproductive health; she wanted to know that the programme by HSRC is being done in the African continent. In South Africa, where is this particular programme being conducted and what are the procedures if one wants to do this particular programme in his or her constituency with regards to sex and reproductive health?

Another issue is on HSRC with regards to their district model pilot. She wanted to know where the study was focusing on and what the study’s findings were; are the findings being implemented as addressed by the researchers and by government with regards to district models? She wanted to know how this research is being used by the South African government; this is because during the presentations it was usually said that they have to outsource to get the study. She wanted to check how effective and proactive the government is in using the researchers and the findings thereof.

On SANSA, she had noted that when they speak on issues on financial management as indicated by the AG, they have spoken on the limitation of IT. She asked if that is the only limitation. They also said that they have an issue with minimum capital, which creates this particular problem they have that the AG has made findings on. Lastly, to all who have presented, she liked the fact that as South Africans they all agree on the idea that they work locally but go globally. However, they must take along South Africans to wherever they go so that South Africans can be proudly South Africans wherever they go doing whatever they are doing.

Ms D Sibiya (ANC) thanked the organisations for their presentation and encouraged them to keep up the good work. She had a question for NRF on the cause of steady increase in the number of researchers in the NRF rating. What was the cause? In the issue of policies she wanted to know when will they be given and implemented.

Under the HSRC, some researchers have faced the challenges of not meeting the output target of general publications and she wanted to know what type of support will be provided for such researchers.

Dr W Boshoff (FF+) extended his appreciation to all the three presentations the Committee received. He had a remark concerning how the NRF is succeeding in all its targets except the transformative targets and also that it struggles with the declining funding and that seems to be a common problem with all the organisations within the science and innovation space; this was concerning for him. He wanted to enquire on the international remedy – if there are any basic international contexts and any mitigating factors or procedures that are put forward to increase the international revenue or if it is a result of the global decline of the economy. What should they look at concerning that problem because as South Africa they are not prepared in increasing funding anytime soon?

For SANSA he wanted to know the future plan projects – what they envisage its influence would have on the local economy.

Mr W Letsie (ANC) thanked all the entities for continuing to make the Committee proud. The science and innovation entity received an award for the best department amongst all the others; they have done extremely well. He thanked them for not partaking in occurrences of corruption or theft of resources. It gives the Committee hope that the future of the country is in good hands.

His first question to all entities was what their vacancy list was. Because of the lack of economic growth they are going to experience severe budget cuts as the economy grows in the fashion it is growing in. He wanted to know how the budget cuts will impact them in filling vacant positions, because there will be a shortage of capacity. How do they plan to bring mitigating measures to assist in this issue?

His question to SANSA was that given that they presented on a satellite building, how much funding will be needed for the building to be properly and timeously concluded?

He asked the NRF what progress can be shown for the discussions for remodelling of the institution. What would be the ideal funding model? What additional resources of external funding are they considering, if any? The last question was if the NRF has any critical skills gap that is affecting the performance of the organisation and how is that being mitigated.

His question for HSRC was what their current vacancy rate is and which specific areas are heavily impacted by staff shortage. What plans do they have to mitigate this? Are there any discussions or plans underway to re-evaluate the funding model of the HSRC? What will the ideal funding model look like and what kind of external funding are they considering?

The Chairperson highlighted that a lot of great work was done in the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) under the entities but ultimately what remains critical is the inclusion and representation of the diverse bodies within the leadership of these entities, within the staff component of entities and within the beneficiaries of these entities of various forms of grants that are given by these entities; the reach of the work that is being done by the DSI and its ability to be impactful to the day to day realities of the people of South Africa. These issues were pertinent to her and she would like for the Committee to move as a sector in ensuring that this great work that is done is clearly seen as translating in the most simplest of ways in the lives of the people of South Africa.

For NRF, she has only one clarity-seeking question, concerning the number of NRF recipients in designated groups that indicated black (female) bodies in the internal bodies. She pointed out that the target for females was 1 579 but the achievement was 1 431. She wanted to know what has caused such an impact; she also asked if it could be part of the budget repriotisation that is taking place due to Covid-19. That is a concern for her because there was a commitment by the Department, which was also reiterated by the Minister, to ensure that they increase the number of women who are put through postgraduate studies and who may become academics and professors, in their efforts to increase the amount of women who fill those particular positions. There was a lot of emphasis on that coming from the Minister; it therefore becomes a great concern for her when there is a deviation from such an emphasis. She also had a concern on the impact Covid-19 may have had on the vacancies within the organisations.

She also wanted to seek clarity from NRF regarding projects they have such as Ithemba found in historically disadvantaged institutions. She wanted to get an understanding of how they have been able to expand the projects. She posed the question to all three entities that have they been able to expand the programmes and initiatives of the Department to institutions not only universities but TVET colleges within a spectrum of the country’s institutions, and how have they managed to balance that with disadvantaged institutions.

NRF Response

Dr Molapo Qhobela, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), NRF, thanked the Committee and Chairperson for their questions and comments. He gave the order of the directors who would respond to the issues posed by the Committee. Dr Beverley Damonse (Group Executive: Science Engagement and Corporate) would respond to the issue of indigenous languages raised by Ms Mananiso; The plans on transformation would be handled by Dr Gansen Pillay (Deputy CEO, RISA) dealing with issues Ms Sibiya raised on the matters of rating, and when policies may be commencing around postgraduate students. Mr Kedirang Oagile (Group Executive: Human Resources and Legal Services) would deal with the issue of vacancies, implications of budget cuts more particularly to Human Resource Department; the progress they are making in terms of the funding model would be dealt with by Mr Bishen Singh (Chief Financial Officer). The issue of collecting additional funding from external sources was to be handled by Dr Phethiwe Matutu (Group Executive: Strategy, Planning and Partnerships). The skills matter was to be handled by Dr Clifford Nxomani (Deputy CEO of National Research Infrastructure Platforms); lastly, the matter concerning the reduction of female member researchers in the NRF was to be responded to by Dr Pillay .

Dr Qhobela started off by responding to the question of how they expand opportunities in historically disadvantaged institutions. The two examples he raised were Gamma Ray Spectrometer for Knowledge in Africa (GAMKA) and Hydrogen Intensity Real-Time Analysis Array Experiment (HIRAX); the consortium includes Historically Disadvantaged Institutions, Ekurhuleni West College (EWC) and University of Zululand and includes former technikons which are universities of technology – CPUT as an example, and is exclusively dedicated to HDI’s; the University of Venda, Fort Hare, and Walter Sisulu. Their responsibility is to support science system irrespective of wherever one may be and irrespective of location, particularly those that require more support to realise their full potential. Their legal mandate does not allow them to support TVET colleges because they do not currently have a mandate to advance research and to undertake research. Because of that they are not in a position to expand opportunities to TVET colleges. However, in terms of science engagements they do have plans of how they seek to want to work with TVET colleges.

Dr Beverley Damonse talked about the issue of communication and awareness, their reach and how they influence the experience of beneficiaries. She does agree that the matter of language is of great importance, especially if they want to change the relationship between science and society. Language is the main medium to articulate this relationship. In their effort they have found that in the last three years they have developed and science and innovation use journals, where young graduates (especially unemployed graduates) having a science and technology bachelor’s background, have been trained with the basic skills of science journalism. Over the last three years, over 19 trained graduates have been trained in the science journalism. These graduates have boosted communication mediums and have been placed in communities and produced over 2 600 science medium stories. Mostly in community media and all in 11 official languages recorded thus far mostly in radio and print broadcast as a primary medium of reaching diverse groups of people in the country. This programme has boosted science journalism capabilities and the number of stories in community media in the diversity of languages, and this programme will continue into the future. The Department has recorded a reach in the science and technology field of 52 out 52 of municipal districts. There is some form of science and technology together with innovation and conversation events and engagements is recorded in all the districts. The main focus going forward is to increase the quantum. In terms of transformation, a framework was put in 2016 to look at the equity profile of both postgraduate students and the researchers of education space and access funding. The presentation showed the progress of equity programme within their Department. They are still looking to reach the 80% equity reach with doctorates and post-doctorate disciplines. The knowledge enterprise is looking at transformation in various disciplines and research areas together at looking at different expertise across the knowledge enterprise itself; they are also looking at the relationship between science and society. That research engages with the issues of society, and looking to engage more of the society in their engagements as an organisation and as a country. The organisation is looking at transformation in the country in science and innovation at a wide spectrum.

Responding to the issue of the rate of researchers, the NRF’s research and evaluation programme is largely about a voluntary effort by researchers within their track records to be assessed trough peer review and national and international review. Despite their budget cuts they have continued to show an exponential growth of the number of researchers that are rated highly. However, they also note that the number of women and black researchers has to increase over time. The Departments’ idea is to look at the source and grow the number of women and black researchers as shown in their transformation policy; it is to increase the available researchers and draw more established researchers and over time, the rate and equity rate of researchers will be evenly represented within the demographics of the country. That is a journey and not event to get to that goal and idea. They have put measures in place to achieve their target. There are a number of reasons why the number of black women has not met their target. The reason is that they have a ministerial funding guideline on the equity of scholarships. They also have free standing bursaries; these scholarships and bursaries have a pool of money that they will have to submit the best students to the NRF for support within their framework. Sadly many of them did not adhere to the ministerial guideline and this impacted negatively on the foundation being able to reach its targets. However, they assured the Committee that they put new measures in place to insist that if those submissions do not meet the guidelines the NRF will not be accepting them. The second reason is that the value of the bursaries is deterrence to the uptake of NRF beneficiaries. A number of students who were awarded the bursaries did not take it because they were offered higher bursaries somewhere else and the policy of the NRF is that you cannot hold two bursaries for the same degree simultaneously. That is an issue that they are addressing through their new postgraduate funding policy that involves full cost of study and partial cost of study based on excellence and financial need. They will not only support students in honours level but if the student performs and meets the requirements, they will support them through Honours, Master’s and Doctoral stage. They are at an early stage able to determine equity and demographic profile of their student cohort and retain such students.

Dr Clifford Nxomani responded to the question on the extent of reach the NRF has to communities where NRF facilities are located. He made the principal notion that the socio-economic impact from a science and technology context emanates from three key aspects; the first is a direct translation of the knowledge area and its products into applications, process and systems that benefit society. In this case an example of Ithemba Labs, in cases where nuclear physics and atomics physics knowledge, is translated towards the treatment and diagnosis of cancer. The second one is the indirect application of science and technology emanating from their activities such as in their radio astronomy facility and its applications for radio frequency interface monitoring resulting in technology that may be applied in the monitoring of aircraft. The third is the collateral benefits that arise out of the existence of their research and development facilities in communities in particular to the area of Sutherland. The facility of astronomy operates from that community and the institution of maths teacher posts that needed recruitment. The facility also makes availability of ambulances for local hospitals for evacuation and transfer of critically ill patients. They also invested in the hospital with local materials that were needed for the treatment of patients; computer and internet access has also been established for local community, especially learners. They also support local community tourism through its partnerships with the community.

They have an artist department which draws individuals into their technical and engineering field. They were also involved in the national ventilator project during the Covid-19 period. They partnered with Rhodes University to manufacture sanitisers which were made available for free of charge for communities and health facilities in Makhanda and the surrounding areas. They have also developed a risk and atlas framework for environmental implications which has been applied to access the vulnerability of local municipalities to the epidemic. Because they operate in a level that requires scientific and technical skills, they do face critical shortages for areas such as software engineering and other hard-level engineering but their response to that is each of their major facilities support the supply programmes of scholarship programmes and provide for training engineering, software and astronomy. The leading marine facility in the country located in Makhanda trains black and women scientists from historically black institutions in the area of marine science. They have also partnered to establish joint laboratories for the Universities of Zululand (UniZulu), University of Fort Hare (UFH) and Walter Sisulu and University of Western Cape (UWC).

Mr Kedirang Oagile responded to the issue of vacancies. Out of the establishment of 1 342 people they have 1 260 filled, giving them 82 vacancies – which is a 1.6% vacancy rate. Their vacancy rate usually hovers around 3% and 5% and they deliberately keep it there to ensure that any vacancy that is not filled in six months’ time is filled. The 3-to-5% is inclusive of the critical and scare skills which needs time to fill. They had to have a moratorium of filling of vacancies that is the reason they are at 6.1%.

Mr Bishen Singh responded to the issue of re-evaluation of modelling funding, additional resources and how they have resolved the budget cuts. He indicated that they have developed a resource allocation model. About 25% of funding is from the parliamentary grant and 75% is in contracts. The proposal was to change that around with likely the majority of those contracts that are funded for multiple years; they have contracts that are funding for 10 years. They are in the process of refining the model to look at areas that can create flexibility in terms of aligning it to their NRF mandate in particular the NRF 2025 and NRF vision of 2030. They are looking at where the funding is released and where they can reprioritise those funds; this is what is in progress. There is a lot of activity around the issue of additional resources as they aware of the constraints of the fiscus. They continue to engage with their national and foreign partners. For example, the FirstRand Foundation has received a grant of R55 million towards the Covid-19 rapid fund. They also have long-term facilities to their sustainability. How they manage budget cuts is by reporting that their budget cut was 753 million rand. They have been able to deal with that in the current financial year; R400 million went to researchers and R300 million went to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA); this was offset of funding that they carried forward. They have put a temporary moratorium into vacancies, which has helped them to absolve some of those cuts.

Dr Phethiwe Matutu responded that over the past five years they have managed to leverage R5 billion through their centers of excellence, research chairs initiative and internally within the NRF. They have observed that in every rand that they invest they leverage more than R3. Per annum, they invest R78 million internally within the NRF and what they receive from external parties is R263 million. The money not only comes to the NRF but their partners in the rest of the continent. When they partner in multilateral fashion they get more investments.

Reponses from HSRC

Prof Mvuyo Tom, HSRC Board Chairperson, responded to the question about indigenous languages. Last year they convened major national symposium on indigenous language developments inside of the country. They showed the retreats that happen inside their institution and the failure of the country to respond and restore the institutions and to the positions in schools. Scholars across the country looked at the question of reading. The Department is deeply impacted with the idea of children being able to read properly on their own. In the issue of transformation they have used their existing policies to monitor and track how they are doing in terms of reaching representatively – racial groups and gender. They are institutionalising that in their solution committees. The reality is that they have not made many appointments. They use those processes to ensure that they keep themselves on track of the targets they have set for themselves but they have a lot of supplementary measures to build the pipeline of young black scholars who are able to compete for positions and opportunities in the Department.

The district development model they have has not gone into the fields; the Covid-19 stopped them in their action. They were about to put a team to monitor the model but when conditions changed it impacted the model. In their new strategic planning they have gone to great lengthens to know what they can do. In their theory of change they have made it known that it is their role to put in the disposal of policy makers and decision makers. The best available information that is needed to be making decisions of problems and possible solutions in the country; they are expanding their collaborations, seeking out Memoranda of Understanding. They have a number of practical relations with government departments as they avail themselves as resources to resolve issues that need solutions. Every year they request from their Minister to take top 10 possible practical briefs, and they explain why they are important and chosen. The question of communications is related to their new strategic plan in their key performance area, in their community engagements. They are setting the target very low; the idea is to have a number of solid community engagements, where they bring the technical knowledge that comes from their research in forms that are available and have immediate use in communities. They did this in the land question during the end of the year – in the issues that Parliament had in the land question. They also had a policy dialogue on water economy in South Africa. The way they access this was by registration – they make the attendance of high importance to these meetings.

Their income from external, international sources is facing a lot of problems. Last year was difficult, and this current year their external income will be higher. The reason why the external funding profile looks like that is because of their HIV engagements with the community on investment of about R200 million. Their relationships with historically disadvantaged universities is limited to the preference of partners that help to build historically disadvantaged universities like Walter Sisulu, Fort Hare, Limpopo, and Sol Plaatje. They have intense engagements. They do not directly work with TVET colleges, but they serve in various task teams, monitor and evaluate in skills development in the country and also communicate with basic education.

Prof Leickness Simbayi, Deputy CEO: Research, HSRC, responded to the issue of out of school project. They involved with researchers and non-governmental organisations that work in the area of sexual reproductive health, based in Cape Town. They operate in four provinces in the country. The issue in the shortfall of the peer review journal articles is that there are always publications that are in the pipeline which they were unable to finalise. It is not easy to predict when a published journal article will be released. Covid-19 has allowed for more focus into publications. At the end of the financial year that is one area in which they will be pleased with their performance.

On the matter of international funding, he said they were aware of the cyclone nature of international funding. The major source of funding is from the US President Emergency Plan for AIDS relief and also the MasterCard Foundation and more recently the Ford Foundation. They are also getting growing external funding from other Departments of government such as in the area of food security fund – funded by the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development. The Covid-19 body is funded by the Solidarity Fund; the online Covid-19 surveys have been funded by DSI. There is a fair amount of funding coming on board international sources and internationally.

Ms Jacomien Rousseau, CFO, HSRC, responded to their vacancy list. As recorded on the

31 March 2020, they had 31 positions taken because they had the moratorium in the previous year. They were very prudent about appointing new positions; their expenditure was below the capped amount they had been allocated by National Treasury in the current year. When they started their budget year they did not have many positions. They reduced those positions to 17 to assist with the budget cut that was done to assist with Covid-19 interventions; the cut was about 10%, which equated about R35.2 million. Their biggest expense was salaries; they had to find ways to merge into that. The organisation at large went through a realignment mandate from last year in the research side which reviewed the funding and business model seeing better how they could optimise and use better what they had in terms of the organisation. The funding model was tricky because they get their main funding resources from government and their research projects. They have been looking more into their business model of how they do things and how they can be more successful in getting the proposals. The year has been good to their organisation.

Reponses from SANSA

Dr Valanathan Munsami, CEO, SANSA, responded, to the question on the funding, that they work on a national system of innovations. So when the NRF gets a budget cut the implications is that all of them are affected because they get some of their funding from NRF. When government departments get budget cuts it affects the contracts they get from the said departments. It has a systematic effect not only on an institutional level. When SANSA experienced a budget cut it has an effect on the system as a whole.

The ministry has three or four antennas around three or four diameters; the new site will bring 60 more new staff members. There is a massive civil works that is needed to get the site ready; they will have to use local expertise in the area in terms of sourcing workspace for the structure. They have had discussions with NASA that if they do land the site is providing various social benefits such as Wi-Fi for the community, and museum on site. This will draw tourist attraction of visitors.

Dr Munsami gave the order in which the directors will respond to questions. Gender and transformation was to be handled by Ms Xoliswa Kakana (Board Chairperson); the audit issue of whether it was an IT problem or HR was to be handled by  Mr Sithembele Bongoza (Interim CFO) and the matter of HDI’s in TVET colleges was handled by Dr Lee-Anne McKinnell (Managing Director: Space Science, SANSA).

Ms Kakana responded to the issue of the gender and transformation. She explained that the gender and transformation policy is done internally. A total of 72 out of the 100 employees are females. How they are making sure that the space itself is transformed is by approaching it from the pipeline from their outreach and how they provide services to government entities. Their women employees were holding a webinar on women and leadership. They have ‘bring a girl child’ shadowing; this is where they bring a girl child learner for a few days to the Department. The intake for interns this current year is predominantly prioritising females. The space industry is not transformed within the gender side as a whole and so there are conversations that are intentional for the inclusion. There are space industry associations; one of the key mandates is to look at gender, geography and innovation in terms of transformation of space industry. When they implement the space structure going forward, the contracting is what they will be focusing on. Their contract supports and fosters gender and transformation space sector.

Mr Bongoza responded to the question of audit findings, clarifying that the errors that were found in the drafting of the financial statement were caused by human errors as result of spreadsheet; this is why they decided to have a system that eliminate human errors through the use of spreadsheet. Usually, the finance team will have different versions of excel and it will audit and given them different versions of the report, which creates problems and is a contravention of the Act. SANSA is drafting a proposal for additional funding for National Treasury through DSI. They need to have additional funding for critical vacancies and operational needs.

Dr Lee-Anne McKinnell explained that funding is a challenge for SANSA because of budget cuts like in other departments. SANSA is in a period of growth with new projects coming along. Its employ includes scientists, technicians and engineers. The staff body has 236 employees, with a vacancy rate of 54 positions and that equates to 23%. The vacancies may sound alarming but the entity is mainly focused on their professional qualified level and also due to observing of space engineering, space science, programming vacancies due to the process they are going through to realign these programmes to optimally deliver on their mandate and set them on the right path for their future investment funding, which will allow them to move away from their reliance on parliamentary grants. The entity has carried these vacancies to ensure that it has the correct structure in place. This structure will need additional resources because the entity anticipates growth of about 50 staff members.

In terms of HDI’s, SANSA is doing the best they can to work with universities and colleges to advance HDI’s. One of the advantages is that because SANSA is not a degree-granting organisation they can work with any number of universities without the normal competition element. So they create opportunities for HDI’S to work within their sector through the international space camp targeted for final year students from across the country who get to partner with students from two other countries and learn about space weather and they have the opportunity to travel to one of the other countries as well at working in SANSA. They have a longer commitment with the University of Fort Hare and Rhodes University; they have a laboratory and SANSA works closely with them and make sure that the students have access to their platforms and are part of their projects. They also have a student administration office to ensure that they are accessing all the universities, caring for the students and making sure they have what they need. The office makes sure that career fares are attended and they have stipulated the number of HDI’s they need to target per annum. They are appointing a research chairperson, the first one for SANSA in space weather, together with the support of NRF and science and innovation and the academic partner for the research chair is the University of Western Cape. However, they stipulated in the framework agreement that they would not only restrict their research chair to one university but they are eligible to work with a number of other universities; this was to bring other HDI’s into the partnership. They also have a long standing relationship with CPUT. They have not been able to do much with TVET colleges until recently but their internship is not only in research and technology but also in their support services opened to TVET colleges. They have assisted by giving them professional development experience, which allows those young students to qualify and they plan to improve on that and expand it in the future

In terms of the satellite funding, they conducted a satellite review on a panel in 2019; now they are seeking funding to finish the first phase. They are building three satellites which will assist in food security, disaster management and more – which fit into government’s objectives. They are hoping to secure an investment of R3.3 billion for the satellite and they need close to R4.3 billion for the entire value chain. This is to develop local space sector, which will create more jobs and opportunities, research, intellectual property and commercialisation of technology. They want to build 1 000 satellites over the next 10 years.

Closing Remarks by the Chairperson

The Chairperson thanked the three organisations for the presentations and their responses to the questions and comments from Members. The sentiments remained the same to increase the synergy between various sectors right from basic education moving to higher education spaces within the various entities. This increase does not only rely on the entities but also on effort from various stakeholders to ensure that it speaks to a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa. Issues relating to finances and funding were some of the primary focuses of this Committee for various entities and it is something that need they are aware of within the DSI and it has been reiterated a number of times by entities and Members. Another matter is the reach of presentation to localise the science they are producing and the opportunities that are present for them to benefit the people of South Africa.

The Chairperson encouraged the entities to continue doing the great work they are doing. The Committee has noted some of the challenges the entities have mentioned and it will advocate for their assistance to meet their targets in order to represent the government of South Africa in a favourable manner.

The minutes the Committee was supposed to consider during this meeting were moved it to 25 November 2020

The meeting was adjourned.