About NPEP

The Department of Science and Technology is coordinating South Africa’s nanoscience and nanotechnology effort at a national level through its National Nanotechnology Strategy (NNS) to ensure that South Africa remains competitive with the international research community in this fast-developing field. The strategy aims to ensure that our country is ready to optimally use nanotechnology to enhance our global competitiveness, and to achieve our social development and economic growth targets. The vision of the strategy is “to draw upon existing strengths of the national system of innovation while addressing the need to enhance its research infrastructure and to create a workforce for advancing technology businesses that support the country’s future competitiveness and enhanced quality of life”.

The Nanotechnology Public Engagement Programme (NPEP) is an initiative funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and implemented by SAASTA, a business unit of the National Research Foundation (NRF). The programme was born of the government’s National Nanotechnology Strategy (NNS). Launched in early 2008, the main objective of the NPEP is to enable effective dissemination of information targeted at enhancing the public’s knowledge and understanding of nanotechnology and also creates a ‘climate’ that is favourable for public knowledge and education to enable informed decision making on nanotechnology innovations so as to improve the quality of life. NPEP further assists in the translation of academic research in nanotechnology for the consumption of the public, industry and the policy makers and therefore being a service to these diverse groups of stakeholders.

Just as in every technology, public acceptance of nanotechnology is the key when it comes to commercially developed nanotechnology products because ultimately, it is the end-users who will influence the trajectory of nanotechnology. It is inevitable that public perception of nanotechnology will be shaped by the news and information that the public receives about the technology, informing their attitude and behaviour towards it. This makes it necessary that adequate information about the technology is timeously provided to educate and enable the public to make informed decisions. Their involvement at this early stage is thus, imperative.

It is for this reason, among others, that the National Strategy has identified one of the key initiatives in supporting the vision of the strategy as ensuring that the implementation of the strategy occurs in a manner that fosters open debate and public access to information. This, therefore, necessitated the development of a communication programme, to inform, educate and engage the public with nanotechnology and its potential societal impact.

The NPEP’s overall aim is to promote the public understanding of and engagement with nanotechnology. Our objectives are to:

• Create awareness of nanotechnology;
• Educate the public on, and enhance their understanding of, nanotechnology;
• Enable and stimulate meaningful public debate around nanotechnology;
• Stimulate interest in nanotechnology and nanoscience as a career in order to ensure long-term capacity building in the field;
• Get industry involved in the development of nanotechnology and taking the lead in nanotechnology innovation.

The success of any awareness programme depends largely on how the message being conveyed is formulated and/or articulated. For a variety of reasons, different societal groupings require different forms of information formulation and articulation. To enable the articulation of the messages to suit the needs of different societal groupings and bring about optimum results, the target audience has been divided into four categories. These are:

a)    Learners,
b)    The scientific community,
c)    The general public and
d)    Industry

Mr. Sizwe Khoza, Project Coordinator

Mr Sizwe Khoza is a Project Coordinator responsible for the leadership and coordination of the DST Priority Areas Public Engagement Programme managed by the Science Communication Division at the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA). In this role, he frequently engages with various stakeholders to ensure that societal benefit through the DST priority research areas is maximised by driving broad-based and high quality public engagement in these areas. Mr Khoza holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Applied Chemistry and a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Management and Administration from the University Stellenbosch, respectively.

The priority areas public engagement programme managed by SAASTA on behalf of DST include the Hydrogen South Africa (HySA) Public Awareness, Demonstration and Education Platform, the Nanotechnology Public Engagement Programme and the Public Understanding of Biotechnology. The main aim of the programme is to promote credible, fact-based understanding of priority research areas through dialogue, education and engagement that will enable informed decision-making on related technological innovations amongst local and international stakeholders. The programmes also aim to entice and inspire the next generation scientists towards science, technology, engineering, mathematics and innovation (STEMI) careers, especially those in the priority areas.