The development of this policy was driven by the imperatives for transformation of the higher education system contained in White Paper 3, a Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education (1997) and the National Plan for Higher Education (2001).

As part of the strategic objective envisioned by the National Plan for Higher Education, this policy aims "to sustain current research strengths and to promote research and other knowledge outputs required to meet national development needs." (p. 70, National Plan for Higher Education).

The purpose of this policy is to encourage research productivity by rewarding quality research output at public higher education institutions. However, the policy is not intended to measure all output, but to enhance productivity by recognising the major types of research output produced by higher education institutions and further use appropriate proxies to determine the quality of such output. As a general rule, research output emanating from commissioned research or contracts paid by contracting organisations will not be subsidised by the Department of Education.

Research output is defined as textual output where research is understood as original, systematic investigation undertaken in order to gain new knowledge and understanding. Peer evaluation of the research is a fundamental prerequisite of all recognised output and is the mechanism of ensuring and thus enhancing quality.

The policy has also taken into consideration the changing modes of disseminating research and research output, such as electronic publications and further outlines processes and procedures that are appropriate to the purpose and commensurate with best practice. Research output published electronically may be recognised if they meet specified criteria.

While the policy recognises different types of research output for purposes of subsidy, it does not support differentiation within types of output.

The subsidy for research output is also influenced by the affiliation of the authors. The claiming institution accrues full subsidy if all the authors are affiliated to the claiming institution. In the case where authors are affiliated with two or more institutions, the subsidy is shared between the claiming institutions.

Affiliated authors are defined as academic or research staff, research students, visiting scholars or fellows and retired academics from the claiming institution. The contact address reflected in the research output of such authors must be the address of the claiming institution.

Higher education institutions may only claim once for each subsidisable research output. Institutions must claim the outputs with a publication date of the preceding year (n-1) in the current reporting year (n).