Nearly R2.5 billion in research activities and more than 2,000 research positions in South Africa sit exposed after US federal agencies pulled research funding last year, according to a Ministerial Working Group report released for public comment this week.

The Working Group on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) funding, appointed in May 2024 by minister Blade Nzimande, drafted the assessment after US President Donald Trump ordered state departments to halt aid to South Africa. The United States had allocated roughly $440 million (R7.8 billion) to the country in 2023. Nzimande's ministry released the report following Cabinet approval.

What is the actual scale of exposure?

The working group identified clinical trials halted, R&D value chains disrupted and public-health service delivery compromised, with the deepest impact concentrated in the health sciences. Foreign funders as a whole account for 17.3% of South Africa's gross expenditure on R&D, the report states — a share that masks much heavier dependence inside specific labs, councils and non-governmental research entities.

The group framed the US pullback as one consequence of a wider geopolitical shift. "The Trump administration's implementation of Project 2025 was a turning point in the structure and terms of globally-funded STI collaboration," the report notes, adding that partners including the UK and EU have also reshaped priorities under strain.

Why did the funding disappear?

Trump's freeze order cited allegations of anti-white discrimination and claims that Afrikaner farmers were being deliberately targeted. The political framing set the context, but the working group treats the episode as a structural warning, not a bilateral dispute.

Nzimande used a Pretoria briefing to argue for institutional hardening rather than disengagement. "South Africa needs a stronger and more resilient domestic funding architecture, together with a firm commitment to protect public science infrastructure as a strategic national asset," he said.

He added: "Scientific sovereignty does not mean isolation or retreat from international collaboration. It means having the capacity to set our research priorities, sustain strategic capabilities, protect intellectual assets and deploy science in support of national development."

What vulnerabilities did the audit expose?

The report inventories three structural weaknesses in South Africa's national system of innovation:

• Chronic underinvestment in domestic R&D
• Siloed governance across departments, councils and universities
• A weakening talent pipeline, with 2,000-plus posts now unstable

Reaching the long-standing national target of 1.5% of gross domestic product for R&D remains the headline finance lever. South Africa has run well below that threshold for years, leaving the system dependent on external grants for anything above baseline operations.

What does the working group recommend?

The report prioritises seven actions. Managers reading for implementation signals should watch these moves:

• Establish predictable domestic funding for strategic research programmes
• Protect critical platforms in genomics, biotechnology, health and public health systems
• Reach the 1.5%-of-GDP R&D investment target
• Strengthen coordination between government, universities, science councils, industry and municipalities
• Require international partnerships to include fair IP, data, technology transfer, local manufacturing and skills terms
• Restructure international collaboration around equity and impact
• Establish a fully-fledged sovereign innovation fund

Nzimande framed the moment as both warning and opportunity. "The withdrawal of funding has exposed a vulnerability, but it has also created an opportunity. Scientific excellence must be supported by financial resilience, institutional strength and strategic autonomy," he said.

What changes for R&D managers and PIs?

Principal investigators with US-funded cohorts face the most immediate decisions: contract renewals, trial continuation plans and data-sharing arrangements all hinge on transitional arrangements still being negotiated. Universities and science councils with heavy health-sciences portfolios — the segment most exposed to the 17.3% foreign-share figure — will need to model worst-case attrition scenarios against the R2.5bn exposure ceiling.

Procurement leads at research-intensive institutions should expect the sovereign innovation fund proposal, if adopted, to reshape grant eligibility criteria within 12 to 24 months.

Public comment on the recommendations closes through a Department of Science, Technology and Innovation portal; the working group's final recommendations and any budgetary commitments will turn on how Cabinet weights the 1.5%-of-GDP target against competing fiscal demands in the next medium-term budget cycle.