Hundreds of millions of rands for scientific expertise, infrastructure development

May 10, 2013 Editor 0

Science and Technology Minister Derek Hanekom reassured the Deans of the Faculties of Sciences of South Africa’s universities on Friday about funding for human capital development (HCD – including postgraduate student support) and investment in research infrastructure over the next couple of years. He was addressing the National Science Deans Forum in Kempton Park, east of Johannesburg.

“In November last year, I announced the allocation of R798-million for HCD initiatives, and approved the transfer of these funds to the National Research Foundation [NRF] for HCD in the 2012/13 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework [MTEF],” he pointed out. “Also, over the 2013/14 MTEF period an additional investment of R400-million in the 2015/16 financial year has been made by the National Treasury towards postgraduate student support. The bulk of these funds will be given to the NRF for distribution for student bursaries and researcher grant funding.”

He noted that the ‘DST [Department of Science and Technology] Strategy for Human Capital Development for Research Innovation and Scholarship’ had been gazetted for public comment. This is intended to boost the size of South Africa’s active research community, improve skills and results and increase the country’s international competitiveness in science and innovation. In turn, this is intended to promote socioeconomic development.
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Categories: News

Tags: funds, human capital development, postgraduate student