Authors: Anastassios Pouris
Publish Date: 2008/12/20
Volume: 78, Issue: 1, Pages: 131-143
Abstract
Fluorine research has been identified as a priority area in South Africa and the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation NECSA is embarking in an effort to expand its hydrogen fluoride and aluminium trifluoride production capacity On the eve of those efforts this article reports the findings of an effort to map and assess fluorine research in South Africa in comparison to four other countries ie Malaysia Australia Germany and ItalyThe results of the assessment are aimed at guiding future directions for fluorine research in the country at identifying centres of expertise nationally where new research chairs could be established at identifying international centres of expertise to be utilised for collaboration and of course for intertemporal benchmarking of fluorine research in South AfricaSouth Africa is identified to be producing a small number of fluorine research publications in comparison to other countries like Germany and Italy which produce orders of magnitude larger number of publications and in comparison to country’s total research effort Furthermore the relevant research effort appears to be dispersed geographically and in disciplinary terms Relevant recommendations are provided with particular emphasis on the pluralistic science policy approach followed in the country
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