The White Paper on Science and Technology, September 1996, set the policy framework for the promotion of innovation. Innovation is defined as the successful production, assimilation and exploitation of novelty in the economic and social spheres.

The Innovation Fund is one of the White Paper initiatives designed to encourage:

• collaborative research and technology development programmes;
• a multi-disciplinary approach to problem-solving; and
• application-based research programmes.

Proposals are called for annually and should involve projects that generate products/processes for commercialisation or new methodologies for development programmes orientated towards service delivery. Proposals must meet with the prescribed criteria of the programme. Preference will be given to proposals submitted by consortia of researchers or stakeholders drawn from the business community, non-governmental organisations, research institutes and the higher education sector. The make-up of the consortia should be determined by the nature of the project.

The Innovation Fund is not designed to support micro-projects that could be funded through other programmes. A minimum annual funding requirement of one million Rand and a maximum of five million Rand has been set for large, two to three-year collaborative projects aimed at technological innovation.

The focal areas supported in the past, or currently are:

• crime prevention (until 1998/1999 financial year)

• the promotion of an information society

• biotechnology (genetics-based) and

• value-addition in respect of

  (i) exploitation of our natural flora and fauna, and 
  (ii) advanced materials and manufacturing.