South African National Survey of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Reports

South African National Survey of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer, is a survey to track overall activity in Intellectual Property (IP) management and Technology Transfer (TT) at publicly funded research institutions in South Africa. The survey is an important addition to a portfolio of instruments that are used in assessing the performance of the South African National System of Innovation (NSI). The report highlights a descriptive stories about the socio-economic outcomes that were a result of the development and application of technologies. The survey was conducted in partnership between the Southern African Research and Innovation Management Association (SARIMA), the National Intellectual Property Management Office (NIPMO) and the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI).

This site and the attached, downloadable documents, cover the methodology employed and the results for the institutions covered in the surveys.

Conceptual/Legal framework
The Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act of 2008 (IPR Act) was introduced to incentivise actors in the research-to-innovation value chain to improve their approaches towards identifying and managing intellectual property (IP) for eventual commercial and social use, as well as their interface with the private sector and international partners on these aspects.

Measurement design
The survey helps to define, in practical terms, specific indicators that government and its stakeholders, including the broader community of technology transfer practitioners, can use to measure the capacity, outputs and targeted outcomes and ultimately impacts of publicly funded R&D. A selection of international benchmarks that are used in this report help us better understand the domestic context of Technology Transfer (TT) capabilities and how it is evolving. The survey has value for practitioners to benchmark their activities and outputs, for institutions to measure their progress in terms of added impact from their research endeavours, and for policy makers to calibrate the performance of their policy interventions.