South Africa: Science and Technology Indicators from World Bank
Updated 3mo ago
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Description
Science and technology indicators for South Africa aggregate metrics on R&D, patents, and high-tech exports sourced from the World Bank Group. Updated in March 2026, the data compiles records from international authorities including UNESCO, the IMF, and WIPO. It provides a historical perspective on the country's technological base through standardized economic and innovation metrics.
Use Cases
Analyzing trends in South African high-technology exports over time
Comparing R&D expenditure against scientific and technical journal article output
Tracking patent and trademark registration volumes to assess national intellectual property growth
Strengths
Aggregates data from multiple authoritative sources including UNESCO, IMF, and WIPO
Covers diverse innovation metrics from R&D spending to intellectual property
Standardized World Bank indicator format facilitates cross-country comparison
Limitations
Specific row counts and column headers are not explicitly defined in the source metadata
Potential for missing values in specific years for niche indicators like royalty fees
Provenance
Source
World Bank Group via UNESCO, U.S. National Science Board, UN Statistics Division, IMF, and WIPO
Collection Method
Aggregated from national statistical surveys and international administrative records
Freshness
Updated as of March 2026.
Geography
South Africa
The data is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution (cc-by) license; users should note that a consolidated country dataset containing these and other indicators is also available on the HDX platform.