African research overlooked in citations, policy debates

Publications co-authored by academics in Sub-Saharan Africa with researchers based outside the region are significantly more likely to be cited, having an average of 9.7 citations per publication, compared to 3.8 for those not involving such collaborations, a new study has said.

“Research is often influenced by the funder, and research collaborations can be dominated by Northern partners. This can mean research is driven by external agendas and not national contexts,” the study said.

The research, “Education Research in Sub-Saharan Africa: Quality, Visibility, and Agendas”, is an analysis of a database on education publications by researchers in sub-Saharan Africa. The study was led by Rafael Mitchell, Pauline Rose, and Samuel Asare – all researchers who worked with Education Sub-Saharan Africa (ESSA) and its partner, the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre at the University of Cambridge.

Raising visibility

It was aimed at raising the visibility of research papers and “their potential to inform policy and practice” in the region. The project was driven by a recognition that the work of African academics is often “overlooked and undervalued” in national, regional, and international policy debates and decision making.

The study, which covered researchers from 48 countries who were systematically included, covering all countries within the World Bank classification of sub-Saharan Africa with the addition of Djibouti and exception of South Africa, is based on “patterns identified through the bibliometric analysis of 3,067 studies in the database alongside an analysis of interviews with 30 African-based researchers aimed at hearing accounts of their priorities in the context of their work.

A key finding was the fact that, “more populous Anglophone countries tend to dominate the rankings in terms of quantity of publications; the combined outputs of Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya represent almost 45 per cent of the total.”

“Countries with fewest publications include Somalia, Chad, and Central African Republic, each of which have experienced conflict in recent years. Populous Francophone countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo have fewer outputs than might have been anticipated based on size, and Francophone research is likely to be underrepresented in the data set given the lack of a search of specialist French language databases,” the study said.

Resource challenges

It also found that universities and researchers in sub-Saharan Africa can face challenges accessing “human, material, technological and financial” resources. In addition, the analysis of the African Education Research Database shows that only 10% of education research from the region is funded.

It said previous research had shown that the production of research is dominated by academics and publishers based in the global North. “The post-colonial dominance of Northern research occurs even in fields such as African Studies, where articles by African-based scholars are less likely to be accepted for publication and less likely to be cited,” it added.

The study said there is a large amount of education research from sub-Saharan Africa, adding that, “more populous Anglophone countries tend to dominate the rankings in terms of quantity; the combined outputs of Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya represent almost 45% of the total.”

Stating that the majority of articles, about 82%, appeared in reputable journals, the study found that countries with fewest publications include Somalia, Chad, and Central African Republic, each of which have experienced conflict in recent years.

It said an exercise that evaluated 170 Canadian-funded studies in the global South found Southern research superior to Northern research leading the authors to conclude that “when a problem is local, locals appear best placed to address it”.

Western academic models

The researchers said the study, supports the work of “decolonial scholars such as Mbembe who argued that African universities are fundamentally Western institutions based on academic models that fit a Western context”.

The study, which is part of the African Education Research Database, aims to provide a solution to this problem and challenge Western biases. “The database provides visibility of African scholars and their work,” it added.

Alongside this, ESSA said it aims to coordinate and support a community of African researchers with a view to using research to influence education and education policies.