Mario Scerri

The authors use a broad definition of the national system of innovation as the framework for a series of studies in the historical emergence of the South African economy and society. The book is highly original in taking a long historical perspective starting with the Stone Age and ending with current challenges from a globalizing economy. The integration of the innovation system concept in a specific political economy discourse is original and offers interesting insights. The book gives observers a good understanding of why the current South African innovation system looks as it does and of the main challenges ahead.
— Bengt-Åke Lundvall, Aalborg University

This collection of essays on the South African National System of Innovation by African scholars represents an important theoretical and analytical contribution to the understanding of the complex interactions between innovation and development and how developing countries are being inserted into the present financial dominated globalization process. This is achieved by combining political economy and a broad notion of systems of innovation with a world-systems analysis that rejects the flawed separation of modern disciplines of social sciences.  The diverse perspectives on how local processes of innovation and social change are connected to the world system, both through collaboration and subordination, will be of immense value to scholars and students interested in innovation and development as well as policymakers in governmental and private bodies.
— José E. Cassiolato,  Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

This series of books brings together results of an extensive research programme on aspects of the national systems of innovation (NSI) in the five BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. It provides a comprehensive and comparative examination of the challenges and opportunities faced by these dynamic and emerging economies. In discussing the impact of innovation with respect to economic, geopolitical, socio-cultural, institutional, and technological systems, it reveals the possibilities of new development paradigms for equitable and sustainable growth.

This volume looks at the relationship between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and NSI across the BRICS countries. It brings to fore crucial issues in the evolution and future trends of industrial or innovation policies for small firms: their scope, applicability, co-ordination, and main results, as well as the influence of macroeconomic, legal and regulatory environments. Taking into account the specificities and complexities of SMEs’ production and innovation systems, it seeks to inform research, policy design and implementation in the field.
Original and detailed data, together with expert analyses on wide-ranging issues, make this book an invaluable resource for researchers and scholars in economics, development studies and political science, in addition to policy makers and development practitioners interested in the BRICS countries.

This series of books brings together results of an intensive research programme on aspects of the national systems of innovation in the five BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It provides a comprehensive and comparative examination of the challenges and opportunities faced by these dynamic and emerging economies. In discussing the impact of innovation with respect to economic, geopolitical, socio-cultural, institutional and technological systems, it reveals the possibilities of new development paradigms for equitable and sustainable growth.

This volume, first in the series, analyses the relationship between the state and the evolution of the national systems of innovation. Putting forward several valuable considerations and policy recommendations, it argues that the experiences and knowledge gathered here may deeply impact the way we conceive of the theory of innovation systems, and implement policies and strategies for their development. Original and detailed data together with expert analyses by contributing authors on wide-ranging issues will make this an invaluable resource for researchers and scholars in economics, development studies and political science, as well as for policy-makers and development practitioners interested in the BRICS countries.

"In this book, Mario Scerri provides the reader with a novel and sweeping rendition of South Africa’s economic history from the early part of the twentieth century to the present. He applies a broad innovation systems approach to this history spanning the period from 1916, which saw the drafting of South Africa’s first Science and Technology plan to the first fourteen years of the post-apartheid period.

The introduction of the book lays out the scope of the work and its focus on the identification of continuities and ruptures in the economic history of South Africa. The first part of the book deals with the theoretical foundations of the approach. The first chapter in this section looks at the emergence of evolutionary economics and innovation systems theory as the basis for the main countervailing argument against the neoclassical/neoliberal orthodoxy. In the course of this chapter the foundation is laid for the development of an alternative general theory of economics. The second chapter covers the main debates on the economic history of South Africa and looks at the several varieties of the liberal and Marxist renditions of this history. The theoretical section lays the foundation for the history that is covered in the four chapters which follow. These cover three broad periods since 1916. The first runs up to 1948 with the election victory of the National Party. The second covers the apartheid period and the last follows with an account of the post apartheid political economy. An endnote provides the basis for the analysis of what may possibly be the emergence of a fourth main period in the evolution of the South African system of innovation.

The Evolution of the South African System of Innovation since 1916 opens up a novel engagement with the complex phenomenon of apartheid, its genealogy and its aftermath. It will appeal to economists and economic historians who are interested in the economy of South Africa. It will be of particular interest to evolutionary economists who use the systems of innovation approach as an alternative to mainstream neoclassical economics in the analysis of dynamic economic systems. For this particular audience, this book will provide a welcome addition to the growing body of literature in this area, especially given the novelty of its historical approach."

http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/The-Evolution-of-the-South-African-System-of-Innovation-since-19161-4438-0160-7.htm "

It is widely accepted that innovation is key to economic growth. Countries where research and innovation are high on the national agenda are best suited to prosper in the knowledge-based economy. Conversely, countries whose economies are mainly dependent on natural resources and basic industries tend to lack competitiveness and flexibility in adapting to changing global trends. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has long been concerned with the measurement of research and experimental development (R&D) and innovation activities.

For two decades now, the UNESCO Science Report series has been mapping science, technology and innovation (STI) around the world on a regular basis. Since STI do not evolve in a vacuum, this latest edition summarizes the evolution since 2010 against the backdrop of socio-economic, geopolitical and environmental trends that have helped to shape contemporary STI policy and governance.

Written by about 60 experts who are each covering the country or region from which they hail, the UNESCO Science Report: towards 2030 provides more country-level information than ever before. The trends and developments in science, technology and innovation policy and governance between 2009 and mid-2015 described here provide essential baseline information on the concerns and priorities of countries that should orient the implementation and drive the assessment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the years to come.

available for download at http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002354/235406e.pdf

The Brazil, Russia, India China and South Africa (BRICS) group has emerged as a collection of large economies which are outside the traditional groups of industrialised “first world” economies and which have altered the global distribution of economic power. The basis of their emergence is a combination of their size and growth rates, and the fact that they lie outside the established centres of global economic power. As such, they have “diversified” the power base of the global economic order. The question which is asked in this
paper is whether the phenomenon of the BRICS goes beyond this to mark the start of a possible challenge to the neoliberal orthodoxy which emerged as the globally dominant policy paradigm since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This paper develops and uses a “modes of innovation” approach to explore the potential of the BRICS to constitute a structural rupture in the current globally dominant neoliberal mode of innovation. This question is important since, in the absence of this rupture, the remarkable development trajectory of the
BRICS will serve to reinforce the legitimacy of the global orthodoxy. The paper first articulates the modes of
innovation concept and then proceeds to locate the BRICS systems of innovation within the current globally dominant mode. On this basis it then provides an appraisal of the possible impact of the BRICS on the evolutionary path of the global system of innovation.

This paper develops and applies a concept of modes of innovation to the issue of economic development and the integration of African economies.  This concept, which is located in the systems of innovation approach to economic dynamics, is first developed in the context of the development of capitalism.  It is then applied to the evolution of African systems of innovation over three periods spanning colonialism, and the early and late post colonial periods to explore the shifting locations of African economies in the global economy.  The argument for the effective integration of African economies as the necessary condition for the sustainable development of African economies is then articulated from perspective of the modes of innovation concept.  This analysis based on modes of innovation highlights the enduring and perhaps increasing disjuncture between the prevalent mode of innovation in Africa and the globally dominant one.  Path dependence and cumulative development tend to reinforce this disjuncture unless decisive steps are taken to shift the location of economies in Africa away from national systems of innovation to regional and continental systems.

In this paper, I examine the possible modes of introducing a systems of innovation (SI) approach into economics curricula. I look at the various possible choices of coupling this approach with standard economic curricula and then explore the implications of these various choices. I link this argument with current heterodox debates on the relevance of the neoclassical text and the possibilities of the displacement of its hegemony over the teaching of economics. My main argument is that the current exclusive hegemony of the neoclassical paradigm in most economics programmes constitutes a formidable deterrent to the teaching of the SI approach, except in contained locations at postgraduate levels. I discuss the nature of this hegemony and the reasons for its establishment and then look at the strategic implications for the introduction of the SI approach in economics curricula. My conclusion is that the adoption of the broad definition of this approach could lay the foundation for an overhaul of economics curricula starting at the undergraduate level. This would displace the current mono-lingual economics text with a multi-lingual one with considerable benefits both for the economic discipline and for the teaching of the SI approach.

This paper explores possible reasons for the long and enduring dominance of neoclassical theory over the undergraduate microeconomics textbook. It proposes that those very attributes of neoclassical microeconomics that raise serious theoretical misgivings constitute the basis for the ...

The history of industrial development in South Africa is marked by lack of a coherent science and technology policy. The changing political and economic context has brought a recognition of the need for such a policy, especially for attaining international ...

At the time of the drafting of South Africa's first White Paper on science and technology (S&T) policy by the country's first democratically elected govem- ... *Dr. Mario Scerri is a senior lecturer in he Department of Economics, Univasity of Whatersand, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, ...

... 23 Page 14. Mauritius in March 1995 to which 'core' IOR members were invited. It is keen to act as the Secretariat for an IOR association. 2. Promoting itself as the service centre and entrepot of the Western Indian Ocean. It is ...

Prepared for the Department of Science and Technology and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) by the Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (CeSTII) in the Knowledge Systems Programme of the Human Sciences ...