Strategic management of innovation and entrepreneurial framework applied to the South African nanotechnology flagship projects

Abstract

This study considers four South African nanotechnology flagship projects and evaluates them using the Strategic Management of Innovation and entrepreneurial framework. The flagship projects span a variety of focus areas which include beneficiation of strong materials (platinum group materials), viral therapeutics (HIV, Hepatitis), development of ID nano-structures for nano electronics and fuel cell development. The study found that although projects were at the early stage and therefore dominated by research activities, they were not well aligned to later effectively capture value and take advantage of the existing innovation ecosystem. A number of recommendations were put forward emanating from the gap analysis studies.