South African National Survey of Research and Experimental Development: key sector results and trends: business sector R&D at a glance. Fact sheet 26

R&D performance in the South African formal business sector is vital to the national system of innovation and the future growth of the economy. This fact sheet shows that business spent nearly R1.5 billion less year-on-year on R&D in 2018/19 than in 2017/18. Three-quarters of this investment was concentrated in the natural sciences, technology and engineering. The lion's share (93.5%) of all business sector R&D expenditure, in 2018/19, was for applied research and experimental development research, geared to solving problems at firm-level.