... and remain convinced that increased attention to opportunities for young people will result in a more successful South Africa.
I would like to thank Prof Roy Marcus, one of the most enthusiastic of South African patriots who, with his team at the Da Vinci Institute, agreed to make our dream of technology and innovation interns a reality. We will spend a further R110 million in the next three years on the internship programme, drawing on the R9,5 billion economic competitiveness package announced in the February Budget by Minister Gordhan. We will allocate R15 million in 2012 and 2013 and expand this to R80 million in the 2014-15 financial year.
I would now like to report briefly on some of our actions with respect to the plans we announced in 2011. I undertook then to expand the SA National Research Network connections to all universities by December 2011. We have increased our Sanren links, but we have not yet connected all the universities we promised to connect. I have set aside R78 million this year to extend connections to rural sites, including the remaining six institutions of higher education. In the last financial year, we extended Sanren to 107 institutions. This includes our two major global scientific projects, the Southern African Large Telescope and the SKA pathfinder, the MeerKAT. I announced a commitment to expand the excellent SA Research Chairs Initiative by creating a further 62 chairs. I am excited that several Southern African Development Community countries have decided to also create a chairs programme and are working with us to build this brains trust in Southern Africa. The National Research Foundation did issue a call for 60 new chairs in 2011, as we promised, and I am pleased that several are being filled as we speak.
I am also excited to announce that our Swiss counterparts have agreed to partner with us in creating two joint SA-Swiss research chairs to give us the 62 that I promised to hon members in the debate last year. Thus South Africa will reach a total of 152 research chairs in this financial year. Also as we promised, the NRF established the additional post-doctoral fellowships, each worth R180 000 per annum, for three years from the year 2011-12.
I remain committed to creating a national body on science and technology policy. I had hoped to develop this structure last year, but agreed to await the final report of the Ministerial Review Committee on the Science, Technology and Innovation Landscape. I have received the final report and thank Prof Nongxa, Prof Wieland Gevers and all the committee members for their hard work. I also thank those who did much of the research and the writing. I shall shortly refer the report to Parliament, as well as publish it for public comment. In this financial year, we will finalise proposals for a co-ordinating body to assist government in achieving higher levels of success in research development and innovation.
We have extended the existence of the Astronomy Desk at the University of the Western Cape for three more years and appointed Prof Ramesh Bharuthram to head it. The primary role of this desk will be to assist us in creating a suitable entity to govern and manage the development of astronomy in South Africa.
I turn now to our plans for this financial year. The Department of Science and Technology receives R16,6 billion over the 2012 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, of which R4,96 billion is for the 2012-13 financial year. Of the total budget for this financial year, R2,6 billion will be allocated to public entities. Of the remainder, R1,9 billion is allocated to DST- directed projects, which are implemented by public research bodies throughout the country. Close to R400 million will be provided for the running costs of the department. The allocations to the DST public entities rise from R2,6 billion this year to R2,9 billion between 2013-14 and 2014- 15. This is an average growth rate of 5% and is a welcome development indeed.
However, I must repeat my view that South Africa requires a significant increase in science and technology expenditure if we are to meet our national goals. We are alert to the economic crisis confronting all countries and economies, but it is vital to increase support for research and innovation if we are to retain the critical edge of an emerging world- class research destination.
I am pleased that, for the first time since 1994, we now have a "spending category" for science and technology in the Budget Review document. It sets out government's total financial commitment to all science and technology institutions. The proposed allocation is R10,7 billion in this financial year, which is just over 1% of national public expenditure. We hope that the inclusion of this category signals the beginning of action to give the DST the responsibility for administering the provision of resources to all research-performing institutions and supporting them to perform their research and innovation obligations.
I want hon members to understand that we are not saying we wish to assume control of science councils, but we want to ensure that we allocate resources to them and that they actually carry out research obligations and do not use those funds for activities that are extraneous to research development and innovation.
We are one of the emerging economies with a science and technology base that will allow us to increase benefits to our society. We need to draw on the example of successful emerging economies, such as China, Brazil, India and Argentina, and mirror them in our science and development investments. We will continue to invest in our science councils and our universities. We also intend to expand our investment in centres of excellence by adding six new centres of excellence to the eight that have been established since 2004.
We will also strengthen our technology localisation support programme as a strong contributor to our intention to build an industrial base that makes use of research and development. This localisation programme has continued its support to the 24 companies in the foundry sector that we referred to in 2011. We will be committing a further R45 million over the next three years to build on the successes we have achieved thus far.
We are very pleased to report that funding provided by Parliament for this work has attracted a further R96 million through a grant from the EU- supported Employment Creation Fund. We believe that this will assist us in significantly expanding the industrial and business opportunities in this particular localisation programme.
We are also building on work we have done in exploiting the potential of the fluorspar chemicals sector. We are implementing a very decisive fluorochemicals development programme, which targets human capital development, new business formation and novel processes and products. A multipurpose fluorination pilot plant has been completed and will be launched this year. We have an abundant fluorspar reserve and extremely excellent competence in the handling of fluorochemical processes and products. We want to convert this strategic advantage to industrial activity, business and job creation.
We have secured a commitment of R60 million for the period 2013-15 from the Economic Competitiveness Fund announced by Minister Gordhan in this year's Budget Speech. This will enable us to increase the number of companies we have on our localisation register by a further 50 companies by the end of this financial year and to grow this to 100 companies by the end of the 2014-15 financial year. You are supposed to clap at this point! [Applause.]
Hon members will recall the titanium initiatives that we referred to previously. Thus far, we have invested close to R108 million in this key initiative. Activities include the commercialisation of a novel process for the low-cost production of titanium powder. Researchers are now able to produce kilogram quantities of titanium powder. The next stage is to move to a 2kg/hour production of the powder. This will be achieved through the creation of a titanium powder pilot plant at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research campus in Pretoria.
Over the next three years, we will make over R100 million available for this titanium initiative, and we are pleased that R50 million of this will again come from the Economic Competitiveness Fund. If Treasury grants you such funding from the Economic Competitiveness Fund, it means your department is really good! [Applause.] We continue to support human capital development. All the initiatives we support have a robust postgraduate support programme. Our research chairs are a major initiative. In 2008, we spent R100 million on the research chairs programme. In 2012, we will spend R302 million. This is a prestigious programme that recognises and rewards excellence. We are keen to see it grow. I am further keen to establish chairs for science policy and science communication. I express the hope to the director-general that the DST and NRF will consider this in their future planning.
We are excited about the work that the SA Academy of Science is doing to increase on-line access to journals and to increase the visibility of South African research. The implementation of the Scientific Electronic Library On-line, or SciELO SA, an open-access platform for journals that are published in South Africa, has been a very, very important academic development. It allows free access to South African scholarly journals. We have 22 journals on the platform and the plan is to grow this to 180 South African journals on the open-line platform. Statistics show that the site is visited over 1 000 times a day, with over half the visits coming from outside Africa. The SA Journal of Science has had nearly 130 000 articles downloaded since May 2009.
The Assaf consensus studies have also proven to be very important evidence- based studies for policy makers. The recent Consensus Report on the Future of the Humanities in South Africa has signalled the need for action. I agree with Assaf that more should be done to support renewal in the humanities. I have asked the department to work with the National Research Foundation to develop new and responsive approaches.
However, I believe the greatest success and renewal will come from universities restoring the important intellectual status of the humanities in higher education to one of critical importance and not a sector of marginalisation. I hope the consensus study, as well as the Sitas Report of the Department of Higher Education and Training will be catalysts for the renewal of the humanities and that it will be academics, not government, leading the charge.
I also welcome the creation of the SA Young Academy of Sciences and look forward to working with the academy to create opportunities for young scientists to collaborate and strengthen their research opportunities.
I am very excited to announce that we are paying attention to the architecture for the performance of research in our country. We will be providing over R520 million for our national research facilities this year, as well as R125 million for science equipment. I also intend to direct the NRF to pay far greater attention to support for emerging researchers and for them to consider strategies for supporting women researchers more adequately.
Chairperson, I knew that my time would expire, but let me conclude by thanking my team in the department, as well as my colleague, the Deputy Minister, all the hon members and the chair of the portfolio committee, my family, the scientists and all the friends who support our work in the sector of science and technology. [Time expired.] [Applause.]