Between adversaries and allies: The call for strategic science in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of the relationship of science and the state within post-apartheid South Africa. Through various policy documents over the past seven years, the South African Government has called on the South African scientific community to produce more strategic research, i. e. research that supports national socio-economic goals. The notion of strategic research, however, is not unproblematic, A main aim of the paper is to analyse the empirical findings of the National Research and Technology Audit conducted in 1997 in which scientists at South African universities and technikons were asked to describe and classify their research activities into such categories as “strategic”, “fundamental” or “applied” research. Through comparative analyses of these classifications and other data in the survey (e.g. research output and funding information), the study attempts to establish how salient the notion of “strategic research” is and what function it performs in the discourse of scientists. The main conclusion is that the notion of “strategic science” is used in two interesting — and sometimes even complementary — meanings. From the point of view of the scientific community, the notion enables scientists to avoid the straitjackets of dichotomous classifications such as basic and applied, or Mode 1 or Mode 2 or even, at a higher level, of choosing between the interests of science as opposed to the interests of the state or society. From a different point of view, “strategic science” assumes the character of a handy rhetorical device and even a form of “posturing”. In this sense, “strategic science” is a useful category because it allows scientist to play for whatever audience is deemed to be most useful at a given point in time. Whichever interpretation one opts for, we conclude that the increasing acceptance (it seems) of the concept might yet be another signal that the relationship between scientists and the state are couched in terms which are decidedly less ideological and more instrumentalist.

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