South Africa’s patent system falling short  Anthipi Pouris, Anastassios Pouris  The South African intellectual property rights system comes under scrutiny in this article and is found to be seriously lacking. Not only does the South African patent system not support the objectives of the national innovation system, but it also allows exploitation by foreign interests, [...]

The Scholarly Publishing Unit of ASSAf hosted a ‘Community of Practice’ meeting focussing on Digitisation. Twenty-six people attended the meeting. They were from the University of Pretoria (UP), the North-West University (NWU), the University of Johannesburg (UJ), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), Sabinet, the Africa Institute of South [...]

The United Nations and the cosmetics giant L’Oreal announced the five women scientists who will receive their joint award for advances in scientific research. The award, which is given out each year by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and L’Oreal, honours five women from different regions of the world who are selected by an independent [...]

The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities was signed by three South African universities during Open Access Week. This Declaration is an international statement on knowledge on open access. It emerged in 2003 from a conference on open access hosted in Berlin by the Max Planck Society. Organisations who share the vision of Open [...]

The newly promulgated Integrated Resource Plan for Electricity 2010 – 2030 (IRP 2010) in South Africa makes provision for 9 600 MW of new nuclear capacity to be introduced by 2029. In the light of the recent Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan, the South African government has stated its commitment to ensuring that future nuclear build [...]

Harold Annegarn is Director of Environmental Research [AER] (Pty) Ltd, Johannesburg and Professor in the department of Geography, Environmental Management & Energy Studies at the University of Johannesburg. He is also the founder member of the Sustainable Energy Technology and Research (SeTAR) Centre.  David Block is a Professor of Applied Mathematics and Astronomy at the [...]

The Deputy-Minister of Science and Technology, Mr Derek Hanekom, launched the South African Young Academy of Science (SAYAS) on 27 September 2011. In his address, he said that a progressive and dynamic forum will propel South Africa’s young scientists to fully participate in local and internationally relevant research and development agendas. This milestone event in the SA [...]

The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) recognised top South African scientists at its prestigious Annual Awards Ceremony held in Pretoria on Thursday, 13 October 2011.  ASSAf annually awards up to two ASSAf Science-for-Society Gold Medals for outstanding achievement in scientific thinking to the benefit of society. This year two awardees were selected.  From [...]