The World Bank holds that innovation is key to raising SA’s economic growth. According to its analysis, business, which should be the driver of innovation, is a laggard. Business expenditure on research and development (R&D) has declined by 40% since 2009. But business investment in R&D does not necessarily lead to innovation. Like success, innovation has many parents. Companies learn from employees, customers, competitors and clients, and often draw on outside creators. What counts as R&D remains a grey area. How, for example, do you quantify R&D in the services sector? Be these matters as they may, it is the claim that business is not coming to the R&D party that bears closer scrutiny. Local business funding to its own R&D doubled between 2005 and 2014. There was a decline following the financial crisis, but there has been an uptick since. On the other hand, government funding to business, which was R2.2bn in 2008, has since plummeted by 70%.Yet one is reluctant to label governmen...
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