A Board for the TIA

The Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) Board was announced recently and additional details can be found here.The Board is chaired by Dr Mamphele Ramphele, former VC of UCT, and Prof. Sue Harrison from UCT's Chemical Engineering Department is also a board member.

At a recent SARIMA Technology Transfer Office conference in Johannesburg (4/5 June 09) it was announced that the Board will be meeting in June and its first task will be to recruit and appoint a CEO of TIA. TIA will house the amalgamation of a number of funding agencies such as Innovation Fund, the Biotechnology Regional Innovation Centres (BRICs) such as Cape Biotech Trust, LifeLAB, and Centres of Competence and AMTS. At present it is "business as usual" for these different entities.

It will be "business as usual" for the different instruments until things are ready for them to be migrated into TIA. The Boards of the BRICs have not been disbanded, etc. and they are still making their investment decisions, with the hope that the transition will cause as little disruption as possible. Currently policies and procedures are being developed and an "as is" analysis conducted, focused on the "operationalisation" of the TIA. The CEO once appointed will drive the policy development. At the conference, there was a call from the floor for universities to be engaged with around policy development.

The DST is hoping for the TIA to be operational by October, and it is expected that after a meeting with the TIA Board in early July, that the timeline will be clearer. The budget will largely be derived from an amalgamation of instruments and budgest of the current entities that will fall under this new umbrella, although some additional funding is anticipated, e.g. funding with a late-stage focus.