THE Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) have announced a five-year partnership that will contribute towards the acceleration of technology development and commercialisation in the country.
The two organisations signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) in Pretoria recently. Both organisations believe that this partnership will drive and enhance research and development (R&D) outputs across all sectors and build technology development capacities in South Africa.
Through this partnership, the CSIR will be able to access TIA funding programmes that complement and support CSIR R&D programmes and projects, such as, but not limited to, the CSIR’s Industry Innovation Partnership Programme. It will also provide TIA with access to the pipeline of current and future CSIR-developed technologies for use in the development of projects and ventures.
This move also supports the objectives of the new CSIR Strategy that aims to collaborate with public and private sector to develop and localise technologies, in order to advance industries in South Africa. The strategy is built around the vision of accelerating socioeconomic prosperity in South Africa through leading innovation.
Speaking at the signing event, CSIR Chief Executive Officer Dr Thulani Dlamini said the partnership was a step in the right direction of effective technology transfer and commercialisation, adding that it would advance local innovation and industrial development.
“This partnership is timely as it occurs when the CSIR is implementing its new strategy, which aims to leverage its strong science, engineering and technology capabilities to contribute to industrial development in the country. It demonstrates our commitment to innovating and localising technologies, in collaboration with others, while providing knowledge solutions for the inclusive and sustainable advancement of industry, as well as the broader society,” said Dlamini.
The Interim Chief Executive Officer of TIA, Fuzlin Levy-Hassen, said, “South Africa boasts a number of Science Councils with strong research capacity and state of the art facilities. The CSIR is one such partner and this will place TIA at the centre of an innovation journey that effectively supports South Africa’s socio-economic development imperatives and competitiveness of our industries”.
“The White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation clearly emphasises the need to intensify our efforts to commercialize outputs from publicly funded research. Our partnership with the CSIR therefore, sits at the core of this aspiration.”
