How research underfunding robs South Africa of scientific innovations

He who pays the piper calls the tune, so is the reality of some of the country’s scientists at various universities who often rely on external funding from organisations and other governments to get their research projects off the ground.

Universities are battling to retain skilled, young, and promising scientists and, at times, have had to divert from the country's priority research areas and focus on what the funders want researched — therefore, robbing the country of key scientific solutions.

Research and development (R&D) in science and technology refers to the systematic process of investigating, experimenting, and innovating to create new products, processes, or technologies by applying scientific knowledge to develop new applications and advance the field.

It often involves creative work to increase the stock of knowledge about a subject area. These include finding a new enzyme, discovering a new vaccine platform, or making a vaccine better.

Professor Benjamin Kagina, a principal investigator and project director of NISH (National Immunization Technical Advisory Group [NITAG] Support Hub) at the University of Cape Town, said funding for research in African countries is poor. 

“If you look at the allocation of funding for research by the government, it is a joke. As universities, we rely on external funding — and this external funding is competitive and unpredictable. This means that some of our young and promising scientists will not be able to stay in university because we don’t have the security of funding.

“We definitely need skilled scientists to strengthen research and development of vaccines. We are unable to retain skills due to funding. That is big,” Kagina said.

He added that in many cases, some of the external funders will dictate the priority research areas, “a challenge which leads to universities not focusing on priority research areas for our country because we do not own the funding. So, we tend to align to what the funders want”.

He said universities continue to rely on external funding, and it is always insufficient to sustain scientists who are in universities.

“I know very few skilled people that have left for different reasons, and we definitely need these skilled people if we are to build a sustainable and successful vaccine manufacturing capacity on the continent. And that again is linked to funding,” he said.

Also, related to this overreliance on research funding, for example, US President Donald Trump’s decision to freeze funding — a lot of research funding has been affected by that, he said.

Kagina said universities need a structured platform to monetise their projects to reduce reliance on external funding and become self-sustaining.

He said that while there is the Technology Innovation Agency, a public entity based in Pretoria that aims to support neo-innovations in science and technology to link the innovators of these technologies with partners/ businesses to scale up, universities need a more structured platform.

“If we can have a forum where universities present their work, and investors are in that forum including the government, to foster that kind of partnership. I think that could alleviate some of the challenges that the universities face,” he said.

Professor Patrick Arbuthnot, the director of the Wits/SAMRC Antiviral Gene Therapy Research Unit (AGTRU), said doing research and development projects is expensive.

“It costs a lot of money to do this work, and we have been fortunate to be supported by the WHO, other organisations, governments, and philanthropists.

“We need to be self-sustaining. It’s all very well getting grant funds to help us get things off the ground. We have gotten off the ground, but we do need to generate some revenue to keep this enterprise going — because it will be a waste to let it all come to nothing when funding runs out, which is not too far away actually,” Arbuthnot said.

He added that they need to monetise projects “just to make sure that we are self-sustaining without being greedy and trying to make a huge amount of money for selfish reasons”.

He said their research on HIV and TB mRNA vaccines had been disrupted.

“We were working on the mRNA for HIV, but unfortunately that work has had to be suspended because of the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar) suspension in the country. They were supporting the new mRNA in HIV vaccine work that we were doing — and this is unfortunate. But that’s the way that it is. We hope to be able to revive that work,” Arbuthnot said.

Messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a kind of RNA that conveys genetic information from DNA to protein by way of the processes of transcription and translation.

Professor Glenda Gray, a chief scientific officer at the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and also an SA National Research Foundation’s (NRF) A-rated scientist, said there is a need to find ways of supporting scientists to take their work to market or to showcase what “we” have so that if anyone is interested in commercialising it, they can take it up.

The NRF, an entity of the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, receives funding from the government and other donors, and uses it as grant funding for research and development at various institutions.

“We also as the NRF and the SAMRC should be thinking about a commercialisation cap, not only a funding cap. I think the NRF and the SAMRC must be more active in supporting commercialisation activities.

“It’s not only funding science but to show researchers what to do to commercialise their innovation. Maybe we spend a lot of time funding science but we don’t help them take it to market,” said Gray, who was president of SAMRC and chief executive for a decade.

She said they are fortunate to have funders that are aligned with SA priorities. However, sometimes, when the scientists need to get funding for their research and if the only people that want to fund them are overseas, then obviously, the agenda might be different. 

“That’s why it is important that there is local funding. If there is no local funding, it’s either the researcher stops working or gets funding to do things that are really not our national priority. I guess it’s a lesson for us to look out for our scientists if we want them to focus on our priorities,” Gray said.

In SA, universities are constrained and they are all trying to keep their doors open, and the struggle is at a country level, she said.

“If we invest in basic science and make sure that they have funding and can patent those discoveries or create spinout companies and commercialise that innovation. We can make universities rich. So, it’s one way of universities becoming more independent and not always having to rely on the government to commercialise their intellectual property,” Gray said.

She added that many universities in the United States and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom use the mechanism of spinning out companies to make their institutions rich.

“The role that the NRF and the SAMRC can play is to support universities in their tech transfer activities, we can support them in things like intellectual property and patents. We can connect them to people who are looking for funding for start-ups.”

She said academia and research-intensive universities are critical for innovation because it’s those basic scientists that find a new enzyme, discover a new vaccine platform, or make a vaccine better. So, there has to be investment in basic science.

A request for comment was sent to the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) three weeks ago, however, there was no response despite multiple reminders.

In the first two weeks, DSTI Spokesperson Veli Mbele said he was awaiting approval of his suggested responses from Minister Professor Blade Nzimande. After the third week, Mbele said he thought he had already sent the answers. He was reminded that he had not done so, but he still did not send the responses.

gcwalisile.khanyile@inl.co.za