Dr Adi Paterson of the DST (centre) with SERA Relationship Managers, Prof Robin Crewe (left) and Khungeka Njobe (right). SERA participants and other guests at the 9 November Networking Breakfast.

Earlier this month, the SERA Relationship managers, Prof Robin Crewe of the University of Pretoria and Ms Khungeka Njobe of the CSIR, hosted a Networking Breakfast for members of the SERA community.

Held on 9 November, at the CSIR International Convention Centre, the breakfast was attended by leaders and members of various SERA task and project teams as well as other colleagues from the Alliance partner organisations. The guest speaker on the morning was Dr Adi Paterson, Group Executive (DDG) of Science and Technology Expert Services in the South African Department of Science and Technology.

Prof Crewe welcomed the guests and began the event with a brief overview of the progress and highlights of SERA task team activities over the previous year. Of particular interest was the Centre for Applied Mycological Studies (CAMS) successful development of a blue-cheese flavour derived from a fungus, which is now entering the commercialisation phase for export purposes. Prof Crewe also took the opportunity to thank the task and project teams for their participation and contribution to the success of the alliance thus far.

Guests were then treated to a full continental breakfast before Dr Paterson gave his talk on "IP Policy for public research in South Africa". As one of the Alliance founders while working at the CSIR, Dr Paterson began by congratulating the teams and SERA on its successful growth over the years, expressing that he hoped that the opportunities for further collaborations would be exploited more in the future.

The morning's presentation focussed on providing guests with an overview of the global knowledge economy and an analysis of levels of Research and Development (R&D) investment within South Africa. Of particular interest was the fact that, since the time of the drafting of the South African Green Paper on Science and Technology, there has been a steady increase in resources going into R&D - most of which has come from the private sector.

Dr Paterson went on to divide his analysis of R&D expenditure according to research field and uncovered what according to him, were "structural deficiencies in the National System of Innovation" - including underinvestment in engineering and innovation space activities. "GERD [gross expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP] in Applied Sciences and Technologies does not only represent a very small percentage of the total GERD, but is also decreasing. This space is critical for growth. It is where science is converted into practical use", he said.

Through a benchmarking comparison between the patenting rates of South Africa, the European Union (EU) and USA, Dr Paterson further showed that South Africa was way behind. The factor of patents to university professors in the country was 0.005, as opposed to the 0.05 and 0.16 of the EU and USA, respectively.

He went on to add that while the new policy or patents would come into effect within the first quarter of 2007, we were now faced with new directions in Intellectual Property such as plant and animal breeders' rights, the OpenCourseWare Consortium and Digital Publishing. Science, in particular, would have to deal with new IP concepts like neurocommons which is aimed at drafting and evaluating open voluntary and interoperable legal resources and solutions for databases and genomes in the sciences.

"If we thought the IP debate in South Africa was only about patents, we were wrong. There is a lot more that is going out there that needs to become part of our public discourse", said Dr Paterson.