Science and Innovation Minister Blade Nzimande has called for South Africa’s research funding to be spread beyond the country’s top ten universities, warning that 63% of National Research Foundation (NRF) money flows to a small group of high-output institutions. Speaking at the NRF Awards in Gqeberha on 3 September 2026, Nzimande said 83% of South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) chairs are hosted by the same top-producing universities, a pattern he linked to apartheid-era structural inequality in higher education.
“This issue is crucial not for posterity, but for practical reasons — to ensure our country, with its scarce resource base, makes full use of its institutional resources to reach deeper and wider into every corner of South Africa and unleash its full potential.”
Nzimande said, according to a government transcript of his 3 September address. The figures were confirmed in both SAnews reporting and the official speech record published on gov.za, verified by at least two independent sources.
The concentration underscores a decades-old pattern in which formerly white institutions under apartheid continue to dominate the research landscape. Universities such as the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch, and the Witwatersrand routinely rank among the top research producers, while historically disadvantaged institutions — including the University of the Western Cape in Bellville and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology — have lagged in NRF funding and research infrastructure.
In April 2026, Nzimande announced 41 new SARChI chairs specifically allocated to historically disadvantaged institutions, universities of technology, and newly established universities.
“To broaden participation, strengthen capacity, and deepen structural transformation, earlier this year we awarded 41 new SARChI Chairs, specifically for historically disadvantaged institutions, universities of technology, and new universities,”
he said at the NRF Awards ceremony.
ResearchProfessionalNews independently reported that the NRF is developing bespoke funding routes through its University Programmes and Collaborations initiative, which is designed to build research and human-capital capacity at institutions that have historically lagged. The initiative represents a shift from uniform funding models toward tailored support for universities with weaker research foundations.
Nzimande also flagged a deeper economic concern, noting that South Africa pays more for foreign intellectual property than it earns from its own innovations. The gap, he argued, could be narrowed by widening the research base beyond the current concentration of funding and talent at a handful of institutions.
The precise impact of the 41 new chairs and the University Programmes and Collaborations initiative on long-term funding distribution is not yet measurable from available sources, and any claim that 2026 interventions have already shifted the institutional balance of NRF funding remains unverified. Cape Flats News journalist Nadia Adams will follow up with the Department of Science and Innovation on specific allocations to Western Cape institutions when the next NRF funding cycle is announced.