Abstract:
Innovation has long been established as a cornerstone of economic growth, and governments
use a mixture of innovation policy instruments to achieve the economic and social goals of a
country. South Africa's manufacturing sector has seen a contraction in 2015. The
manufacturing sector is particularly driven by innovation, and this study examines how South
Africa's innovation policy mix needs to be rebalanced in order to achieve growth in the sector.
The study is approached using quantitative methods to characterise and compare South
Africa's innovation policy mix to two comparator countries. Canada was chosen as an example
of a developed country, and India as an example of an emerging nation. The effectiveness of
South Africa's innovation policy mix is then evaluated using qualitative methods and the
results applied to show how South Africa's innovation policy mix could be reconfigured to
achieve economic growth.
It was found that South Africa's policy mix is dominated by supply-side measures. India and
Canada have applied a combination of supply-side and demand-side innovation policy
measures to achieve goals that are comparable to South Africa's. It was also found that a
chasm existed between policy instruments that support research and development efforts and
the instruments that support market development. Rebalancing the innovation policy mix
towards using more demand-side instruments and more generic rather than population
targeted instruments could provide a remedy to this problem and improve the prospects for
the sector.
