The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has outlined a new strategy that is aimed at ensuring that their scientific developments contributes to industrial development.
The Board Chairperson, Professor Thokozani Majozi and Chief Executive Officer, Dr Thulani Dlamini, shared the organisation’s recently finalised new strategy at a media briefing in Pretoria on Friday.
The strategy aims to leverage its strong science, engineering and technology capabilities to respond to industrial development opportunities and create a more balanced portfolio of scientific and industrial development work, as required by its mandate.
The CSIR strategy is centred on nine clusters to address national priorities, including public good science, potential for socioeconomic impact and the fourth industrial revolution.
Dlamini says the new strategy aims to create original equipment manufacturers and suppliers to the manufacturing value chain amongst other things.
He says, “We aim to create local enterprises that will supply into the manufacturing value chains for instance, we’ve done work in terms of the development of a 3D printer, we then need to commercialise this, so there is an element of the production of the printer itself, which is the infrastructure that does the printing and then by so doing we create an enterprise that could manufacture equipment, in this case the 3D printer itself and linked to that is the economic opportunity associated with the utilisation of the printer through the utilisation of the printer through the production of parts, production of components into various applications be it medical, be it aerospace.”
The council is also working closely with the private sector and innovation partners in developing and localising technologies to support the advancement of industries in South Africa.
