The Portfolio Committee on Science, Technology and Innovation calls for stronger and more coordinated action to ensure that women and girls can enter, progress and lead in South Africa’s science, technology and innovation system.
As South Africa marks National Women’s Month, the committee recognises the important contribution women and girls are making in research, innovation and technological development, while also emphasising the need to address the barriers that continue to limit their full participation and advancement.
Committee Chairperson, Ms Lusizo Makhubela, said South Africa cannot build a competitive and inclusive innovation economy while girls and young women continue to face barriers in scientific and technological fields. “Women and girls must not only be encouraged to enter science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM); they must be supported to remain, advance and lead. The country needs their talent, ideas and leadership if science, technology and innovation are truly to be for everyone,” Ms Makhubeka said.
The committee believes that the participation and advancement of women and girls in science, technology and innovation is not only a gender equality issue. It is central to national development, economic transformation, skills development, competitiveness, innovation and social justice. This is particularly relevant in 2026, when South Africa has launched its inaugural National Science Month. For this principle to have practical meaning, women and girls must have genuine opportunities to enter, progress and lead across the science, technology and innovation system.
South Africa has made important progress in strengthening women’s participation in the research and higher education system. The Department of Science, Technology and Innovation’s (DSTI) most recent end-term assessment of its 2020–2025 Strategic Plan, records that women constituted 48% of the country’s research workforce in 2024/25, up from a baseline of 45.1% in 2019/20. The National Advisory Council on Innovation’s 2025 Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators Report also indicates that women’s representation among permanent academic staff at public universities increased from 46% in 2010 to 52% in 2022.
However, participation does not necessarily translate into equal representation at the highest levels of the system. In 2020, women accounted for 37.5% of permanent professors, including associate professors, compared with 27.8% in 2011. At the same time, there are encouraging indications of women’s advancement into recognised research leadership, with women holding 57% of Research Chairs under the South African Research Chairs Initiative by March 2023.
These indicators present a mixed but important picture. South Africa is making progress towards greater gender representation in the research workforce and in areas of research leadership, but women remain underrepresented in most senior academic positions and across key STEM disciplines. Men continue to dominate fields including engineering, computer and information sciences, mathematics and statistics.
The committee therefore believes that the measure of transformation must extend beyond how many women enter the system. Parliament and the National System of Innovation must also ask how many remain, how many progress, who controls research resources, who leads institutions and research programmes, and whether women are able to translate knowledge and innovation into economic and social value.
Increasing women’s participation in science, technology and innovation is an investment in South Africa’s future productive capacity. Scientific research, engineering, digital technologies, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, space science, energy technologies and other emerging fields will increasingly determine the country’s competitiveness and its capacity to respond to complex social and economic challenges.
Greater diversity within scientific and technological communities can strengthen the questions that are asked, the problems that are prioritised and the relevance and accessibility of solutions developed for society. Women’s participation is therefore important not only because women deserve equal opportunities, but because South Africa needs the full range of its talent and perspectives to solve national challenges.
This is also a matter of scientific sovereignty. South Africa needs sufficient domestic capability to generate knowledge, develop technologies and adapt innovations to local conditions rather than becoming increasingly dependent on technologies developed elsewhere.
The committee urges girls to see STEM as fields in which they belong and can lead. They can become researchers, engineers, programmers, entrepreneurs, inventors, academics and institutional leaders. South Africa needs their ideas, capabilities and leadership.
Despite the progress achieved, significant barriers continue to affect women’s participation and advancement. These include gender stereotypes, unequal exposure to STEM opportunities, limited access to mentors and role models, financial constraints, unequal access to research infrastructure and digital resources, and the difficulty of balancing demanding scientific careers with family and care responsibilities.
The challenge is therefore not simply to encourage more girls to study STEM subjects. South Africa must ensure that girls and young women are supported throughout the pipeline from school to tertiary education, postgraduate study, early-career research, professional employment and senior leadership. Educational institutions, research organisations, universities and technology companies must also provide safe, inclusive and respectful environments. Gender discrimination, sexual harassment and gender-based violence have no place in any of the country’s institutions.
These challenges must also be understood in relation to other forms of disadvantage. Women and girls from rural and poor communities may experience overlapping barriers related to gender, geography, socioeconomic circumstances, access to quality schooling, connectivity, transport, research infrastructure and financial support. A genuinely transformative approach must therefore recognise these intersecting barriers and ensure that opportunities reach those historically excluded from the ST&I system.
From a parliamentary oversight perspective, greater attention must be given to whether interventions are producing measurable outcomes across the entire science, technology and innovation pipeline. This includes the effectiveness of interventions encouraging girls to take STEM subjects, access to bursaries and postgraduate funding, retention of early-career researchers, mentorship, access to laboratories and research infrastructure, progression into senior positions, and opportunities for women innovators to secure finance, protect intellectual property and commercialise research.
The committee also calls for stronger coordination between government departments, schools, TVET colleges, universities, science councils, research institutions and industry. As strategic emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, space science, advanced manufacturing, hydrogen technologies and quantum technologies expand, deliberate attention must be given to ensuring that existing gender inequalities are not reproduced in these emerging areas.
The committee welcomes initiatives that recognise excellence among South African women in science, technology and innovation fields. The South African Women in Science Awards provide an important platform for recognising research excellence and profiling women as role models. Recognition is particularly important for young women and girls who need to see that scientific and technological careers are attainable and that women can occupy positions of expertise and leadership.
However, recognition must be matched by opportunity. Awards and public profiles can inspire the next generation, but sustained investment in education, research careers, infrastructure, mentorship and innovation finance is what enables talent to develop and remain within the system.
The committee will continue to recognise the progress made while scrutinising the gaps that remain. It will encourage the DSTI and its entities to strengthen gender-responsive planning, monitoring and reporting, and to provide Parliament with clearer evidence of outcomes for women and girls. The Committee will also continue to examine whether public investment in science, technology and innovation is delivering measurable results.
Women’s Month should therefore be more than a period of commemoration. It should be an opportunity to assess what has changed, identify where progress remains insufficient, and strengthen the accountability mechanisms required to close the remaining gaps.
The committee calls on government, educational institutions, research organisations, industry and society to ensure that women and girls are not merely participants in science, technology and innovation, but are also leaders, decision-makers, researchers, engineers, inventors, entrepreneurs and architects of South Africa’s technological future.
The committee reaffirms its commitment to strengthening parliamentary oversight and supporting a National System of Innovation in which women and girls have an equal opportunity to participate, excel, lead and shape the future.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Republic of South Africa: The Parliament.
