Notable achievements for the 2011/12 financial year includes the awarding of bursaries to 1 692 Honours, 3 478 Master's and 1 913 PhD students and supporting 2 886 researcher. The national Nanotechnology Innovation Centres (NICs) published 103 papers, filed one patent and have three patents under development. Furthermore, the Department awarded 50 research equipment grants and connected 86 research and teaching institutions to the South African National Research Network (SANReN). Under the IKS R&D platform, the commercialisation process was initiated for one cosmeceutical candidate product, preclinical studies were completed on a diabetes lead and good progress was achieved on preclinical studies for TB and HIV projects.