For learners who packed into the Vaal University of Technology on Saturday, the message from Deputy Minister Nomalungelo Gina was direct: “Your dreams are valid, and you must never allow anyone to tell you that you cannot become a scientist.”
That address marked the launch of South Africa’s National Science Month, a new government initiative designed to carry scientific knowledge into communities across the country. The event coincided with the university’s 60th anniversary, and the timing felt deliberate. Science, Gina argued, can no longer remain the property of campuses and research institutions.
The programme replaces National Science Week, which has run since 2000. A single week, the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation concluded, no longer builds the kind of sustained public connection that the country needs. The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation formally designated the month-long initiative as the department’s flagship science engagement effort just days before the launch.
Its theme, “Science, Technology and Innovation Are for Everyone,” is a statement aimed squarely at communities historically shut out of scientific spaces. The framing acknowledges a persistent reality: that for many South Africans, science has felt distant, abstract, and not meant for them. The month-long format, and the breadth of topics it covers, is the government’s attempt to change that.
What changed, at least in scale, was visible at the launch itself. A science exhibition drew 132 stands and more than 100 exhibitors. Universities represented included the University of the Witwatersrand, University of Johannesburg, University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of Cape Town, North-West University, University of Limpopo, Stellenbosch University, University of Venda, Tshwane University of Technology, Durban University of Technology, Mangosuthu University of Technology, Sol Plaatje University and Nelson Mandela University. Science councils and research bodies, among them the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, National Research Foundation, Technology Innovation Agency, South African National Space Agency, Academy of Science of South Africa and the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions, also took part.
The programme’s topics span technology and innovation, health, environmental management, service delivery, education, journalism, human rights, climate change, space science, decolonising knowledge systems, science diplomacy and youth engagement. That range reflects a conviction that science touches nearly every corner of daily life, from the clinic to the classroom to the courtroom.
Gina also used the platform to name the stakes plainly. South Africa currently spends roughly 0.61 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on research and development, well below the National Development Plan target of 1.5 percent. That gap, she suggested, is not just a budget figure. It is a measure of how far the country still has to travel to make science central to economic transformation, industrialisation and competitive advantage. The department’s new operational principle, as she described it, is “Placing Science, Technology and Innovation at the Centre of Government, Education, Industry and Society.”
To ground that ambition in lived possibility, Gina pointed to South African innovators Mashudu Tshifularo and Sandile Ngcobo, and to major projects including the Square Kilometre Array, the Southern African Large Telescope, iThemba LABS and the SANSA Space Weather Centre. These are not distant foreign achievements. They are homegrown, she told the learners in the room.
The official National Science Month logo was unveiled during the event. North-West University received symbolic responsibility for hosting the 2027 edition, a handover that signals the programme intends to travel, not to stay anchored in one place.
Gina closed by calling on ordinary South Africans to carry the message themselves, into towns and villages across the country. Whether that call reaches the communities the theme promises to include is the question the coming months will answer.
For more information, visit https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/national-science-month-launched-strengthen-public-engagement-science.