Browsing by Author "Abrahams, Lucienne"

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    Effects of the South African IP Regime on Generating Value from Publicly Funded Research: An Exploratory Study of Two Universities
    (Juta, 2014) Ncube, Caroline; Abrahams, Lucienne; Akinsanmi, Titiyo; De Beer, J; Armstrong, C; Oguamanam, C; Schonwetter, T
    This study analyses evidence from two South African universities of how innovation activity and research dissemination are being influenced by a new intellectual property (IP) commercialisation law for publicly funded research outputs. The study sought to understand the ways in which the Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development (IPR-PFRD) Act of 2008 and its Regulations influence the generation of value from research. The study was positioned within a theoretical frame which holds that maximalist approaches to IP protection tend to be sub-optimal for certain long-term socio-economic objectives inherent in research funding. The research found evidence of adaptation by both of the universities studied (UCT and Wits University) to the requirements of the Act, and evidence that the Act can have a positive influence on South Africa’s innovation nexus provided that the Act’s patenting orientation continues to be complemented by openness-oriented research dissemination and collaboration practices, including open access (OA) scholarly publishing.
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    A single public service for South Africa: Process and prospects
    (South African Association of Public Administration and Management, 2009-12) Abrahams, Lucienne; Fitzgerald, Patrick; Cameron, Robert
    The South African government machinery has historically been organised as the public service and the local government service. This created a perceived lack of alignment at the levels of policy and service delivery, which was seen as a reason for poor government performance in addressing development challenges. The Department of Public Service and Administration therefore proceeded to create the legislative and institutional basis for a single public service. South Africa has a complex set of development goals to which the public service must respond and this requires thorough-going public sector reform, with due attention to major reform trends elsewhere in the world. While the efforts to construct the single public service attempted to incorporate some of these trends, it appears to have fallen short with respect to constructing a development paradigm for government services.