28 Mar 2022

Research remains critical in the country’s economic recovery transformational plan, Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology, Dr Douglas Letsholathebe has said.

Presenting the ministry’s budget estimates for the 2022/2023 financial year recently, Dr Letsholathebe said the ministry would thus spend over P155 million of its development budget on research and development programmes in the 2022/2023 financial year.

From the P155 million, he said the ministry would use over P64 million on research innovation and capacity building.

He added that the other P90 million would fund the ongoing BITRI research projects and Implementation of Indigenous Knowledge Systems Policy, while the remaining P52m would be spent on three programmes including the ministry’s computerisation, infrastructure and maintenance as well as detection and disposal of radioactive materials.

Dr Letsholathebe further explained that the National Research Ethics and Integrity Policy would commence during the 2022/2023 financial year.

He said mainstreaming and institutionalisation of research ethics across various institutions involved in research was of high importance.

He indicated that introduction of the National Research Ethics and Integrity Policy would help research institutions and individual researchers to conform and adhere to local and global research ethics considerations. 

That, he said would prevent research misconduct and malfeasance in the research and innovation community.

Dr Letsholathebe further said the ministry had been working round the clock to set up the core to start igniting action in the research and innovation space and had embarked on extensive consultation with the research and innovation ecosystem on issues that affected them. 

As a result of such engagements, he said the ministry had secured a total amount of P45m to stimulate and support local research and innovation as well as building capacity in different economic sectors, with five key projects with potential for high impact and national relevance being supported.

Furthermore, he said in an effort to develop critical human resource for research in climate change, the ministry was supporting four post-graduate studies at Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) in climate change research.

Again, he said they had also stepped up efforts to establish a national Research Fund which accounted for a complete research value-chain with positive societal impact. He said the fund would guard against loss of intellectual property and protect this country from being a ‘petri dish’ of research. In the era of globalisation, he said collaborations were central to the development of any country’s economy, hence the ministry had facilitated local, regional and international collaborations to build and strengthen local capacity in research science, technology and innovation.

He said some of the benefits derived from such collaborations included the review of the National Research, Science, Technology and Innovation Policy through the support of the United Nations Conference on Trade and development which was expected to be completed next month.

Dr Letsholathebe said further work with the development partners in the research and innovation ecosystem, led to the development of a strategy for engaging the private sector in research, science, technology and innovation to ignite industry interest in playing a larger role in research and innovation.

Additionally, he said five local research teams from University of Botswana and BIUST were supported with funding to support generation of knowledge on the COVID-19 pandemic and disseminate coordinated science communication outputs to allow readers access factual information.

Under recurrent budget, Dr Letsholathebe said the ministry would use over P1.5 billon to fund eight parastatals with UB and BIUST allocated a larger share.

He also said over P1bn or 32 per cent of the ministry’s recurrent budget would be allocated to tertiary education financing with the largest share meant for payment of student allowances.

Meanwhile, Parliament approved the ministry’s budget comprising over P3bn and over P207m for its recurrent and development expenditure respectively in the next financial year. ends