| The HSRC receives a Parliamentary grant to undertake, stimulate, and promote policy-relevant, applied social science research that contributes to the development of South Africa and the region, and particularly to the advancement of its inhabitants who are poor, vulnerable, or marginalised. More than R73.7 million of the Parliamentary grant of R85.1 million for 2005/06 was directly allocated to research activities. Of this amount, approximately R41 million was spent on research projects, while some R32.7 million was applied to research capacity-building and infrastructure support within the research programmes. The remaining, relatively small, portion was of the Parliamentary grant is utilised for institutional costs required to maintain basic research infrastructure and respond to responsibilities as a public entity. More information is available in sections 4.1 and 4.4 of the Council’s Report. What follows are some examples of how individual research programmes applied their portion of the Parliamentary grant during the 2005/06 financial year. The projects are more fully described in the sections devoted to each research programme. Child,Youth, Family and Social Development CYFSD uses its Parliamentary grant allocation to: initiate research activities in important areas not yet under the spotlight, such as a detailed database of measures of development of young children in Africa; supplement externally funded grant and contract projects, especially to build the capacity of trainees, to network with partners, and to increase the dissemination of the results through workshops and materials, including film. In 2005/06, CYFSD prepared film material on interventions to support children, caregivers and staff in health facilities; add value to research by supporting peer-reviewed publications, including writing, meetings, advanced statistical analysis and journal page costs. In 2005/06, CYFSD published 26 peerreviewed journal articles, with 24 accepted for publication.
Democracy and Governance A large portion of D&G’s projects emerges through collaborations with State and other external agencies. In particular, the study of rural women’s rights and traditional authorities is financed, in part, from the Parliamentary grant and in part by the Foundation for Human Rights and the South Africa–Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD). In the same way, the Metagora project, which considered the degree to which human rights are being respected in the land reform process, was funded internally and by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The Race and Redress project is a collaborative project between D&G and the Conflict and Governance Facility (CAGE), a partnership project of the National Treasury and the European Union.
Employment, Growth and Development Initiative EGDI primarily used its Parliamentary grant to “seed” new areas, including foundational modelling work for the employment scenarios; the preparation of global case studies of high-growth economies; a study to enumerate economic linkages between the formal and informal sectors; a review of the relationship between exchange rates and employment; case studies on early child development; and initiating work on South Africa’s role in Africa. The grant was also used to investigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on small firms and how they manage it in the workplace. Finally, the grant supported our series of conferences and roundtables, such as an international roundtable on school-to-work transitions, the WORK conference, and seven roundtables on specific projects. Education, Science and Skills Development The Parliamentary grant was used to fund the following projects: Preparations for the second edition of the HRD Review series are well advanced and the HRD Review 2006 will be launched in March 2007. The main purpose of the review is to put in place a significant management information infrastructure for use by the State and HRD researchers across the education, training, science and technology (S&T), industry, employment and labour market policy domains. This infrastructure, in the form of a multi-faceted cross-sectoral data warehouse and book series, will be updated on a triennial basis. A project exploring the professions and professional education programmes in relation to post-1994 policy goals, labour market supply and demand issues and changing local and international discourses on professionalism and professional education. The first case study, on the medical profession has been completed and has resulted in a monograph entitled Doctors in a divided society: The profession and education of medical practitioners in South Africa. Based on this pilot study, a conceptual model has been developed for further case studies, which will be conducted this year, on engineers, social workers, nurses and artisans. The student retention and graduate destination study investigates factors that influence the transitions through higher education and labour market pathways of graduates of selected higher education institutions in South Africa. In the process, the study also analyses students’ dropout and throughput rates. Both dropout and throughput rates have become topical issues, given that the financial wastage of dropout on human resource development is estimated to be around R4.5 billion. The Department of Education (DoE) has injected around R1.3 billion into the higher education sector to provide for learner retention and academic development programmes, and has proposed that over the next ten years the higher education throughput rates’ target should reach 30%. The HSRC recently completed a study for the Department of Science and Technology (DST) on the role of parents in their children’s science, engineering and technology (SET) career choices. The study sought to establish the extent to which parents contribute to their children’s participation, performance and career choices in mathematics and science. In late 2005, Professor Jo Lorentzen and junior research associates from the Department of Economics at the University of Cape Town launched a study on the determinants of innovative activities in four industrial sectors in the Western Cape. The study closely collaborated with the respective sector associations, namely Wintech (wine), the Cape Information Technology Initiative (CITI), Acorn (medical devices), and the Cape Boatbuilding Initiative. Open workshops discussing the results and implications of the study with the members of the sector associations are scheduled for mid-2006. Gender and Development Professor Gill Marcus of the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) presented a public lecture on Women’s Day on the subject Setting the agenda: Challenges women face in their careers. The unit actively supported the 16 Days of Activism against Violence Campaign. The project manager and fieldworkers for a research monograph on Women, development and transport in rural Eastern Cape, South Africa (Potgieter, C., Pillay, R., Niekerk, T. & Rama, S., 2006) were all Eastern Cape residents and as a result the project contributed to job creation and skills development: through the experience the fieldworkers gained on the project some obtained full-time employment.
Knowledge Systems The work of the Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (CeSTII) combines Parliamentary funding of the HSRC with ringfenced funds provided by the DST to generate the necessary measures of the national system of innovation. This work feeds directly into government decision-making. Socio-economic Surveys supported the performance of SASAS 3 with parliamentary funds, while GIS used their allocation towards capacity development in terms of small area estimation and accessibility modelling. All three sections have collaborative networks of researchers and fieldworkers and they contribute directly to a better understanding of the dynamics of service delivery.
National Education Quality Initiative Parliamentary funds were used to obtain support to establish the National Education Quality Initiative (NEQI) and to reach consensus among education role-players on the key challenges the initiative should address. Monitoring trends in education quality is a national survey conducted to assess Grade 9 learner levels of performance in English, mathematics and science. This survey was first conducted in 1996 and repeated in 2002. The findings will provide information for policy-makers on performance trends and the context of learning and teaching at the end of Grade 9. The HSRC provided technical assistance to provincial officials of the Gauteng DoE in data analysis and report writing. Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health The Parliamentary grant partially funded the Traditional healers project in KZN and the South African National HIV prevalence, HIV incidence, behaviour and communication survey, 2005. The Parliamentary grant was also used to cover operational costs, for example accommodation, overheads, and a large portion to cover the salaries of some of the permanent staff members. A reasonable amount was also spent on training, seminars, conferences and bursaries as we believe that capacity-building of our staff is critical. Since SAHA has two offices, the grant also covered travel expenses not related to specific projects, and the refurbishment of the Cape Town offices.
Society, Culture and Identity Almost all of the Society, Culture and Identity programme’s projects used a portion of the Parliamentary grant. The unit made significant advances in the extent of its collaborations, both internally and externally: Internally, SCI won tenders jointly with other programmes, took part in programme reviews, and contributed to a range of projects hosted by other divisions within the organisation. Externally, SCI formed collaborative arrangements with a number of tertiary institutions and entered into formal memoranda of understanding with community organisations in the course of various projects. Impacts were felt both in the breadth of discussion on topics such as identity because of the high-profile visiting lecturer series, but also more specifically on policy formulation as SCI took part in commissioned work or tendered for work with that purpose. |
