A scientometric assessment of the Southern Africa Development Community: science in the tip of Africa
Summary (1 min read)
Introduction
- The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been established in 1992 under Article 2 of the SADC Treaty.
- The SADC protocol on Science Technology and Innovation is a legally binding document aimed at regulating collaborative initiatives within the SADC region to support the implementation of the SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan and Africa’s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action.
- Establishment of collaborative regional R&D programmes in priority areas 4. Promotion of the value and application of IKS & technologies 5. Promotion of technology transfer and innovation 6.
- The article aims to outline trends in the research outputs of the fifteen countries; to identify their scientific specialisation and to report their collaborative patterns.
Methodology and Data
- Scientometric analysis is one of the most efficient and objective methods of assessing scientific performance.
- The philosophy underlying the use of scientometric indicators as performance measures has been summarized in De Solla Price’s statement that “for those who are working at the research front, publication is not just an indicator but, in a very strong sense, the end product of their creative effort.” (DE SOLLA PRICE, 1975).
- There are limited scientometric studies investigating science in the African continent and even fewer which focus exclusively in the continent.
- The most often used databases for such analyses are the citation indices of Thomson Reuters (formerly known as those of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)).
- An activity index larger than one reflects higher than average effort dedicated to the field and vice versa.
Results: SADCs Scientific Performance
- The small output of the SADC countries becomes profound if the authors take into account that the University of Pretoria in South Africa is producing approximately 1000 publications per year.
- Probably the most important issue that should be emphasised is that it is doubtful that the SADC countries will be able to meet the “Millennium Development Goals” (MDG) with the existing research infrastructure.
- Portugal appears twice in the list, in collaboration with Angola and Mozambique.
- It should be emphasised that the major collaboration between Germany and South Africa and Germany and Namibia is in the field of space science.
Conclusion
- The objective of this article is to assess the state of science in the fifteen Southern Africa Development Community countries.
- South Africa produces only 0.55% of the world’s scientific literature.
- Identification of the research emphasis of the Community shows an emphasis on traditional research areas (agriculture, plant and animal sciences etc).
- There is an underemphasis in scientific areas promising to support innovation such as engineering, material sciences and molecular biology.
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Citations
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Cites background from "A scientometric assessment of the S..."
...To observe this restricted universe has been seen as an advantage as it refers to the journals that publish the articles that exert more influence in the international literature (Pouris, 2010)....
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Cites background from "A scientometric assessment of the S..."
...In another study, Pouris (2010) reported that South Africa published almost 14 times more publications than the second country in the list-Tanzania, with a total of 4184 publications from 1994 to 2008....
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...When searching the literature on research productivity and impact in Tanzania, we found few African studies, which had included Tanzania in their analysis (Abrahams et al. 2009; Confraria & Godinho 2015; Pouris 2010; Pouris & Ho 2014; Onyancha 2016; Boshoff 2010)....
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...Evidence also shows that the research output in Tanzania is considerably less than other countries in the African region (Pouris 2010; Boshoff 2010; Abrahams et al. 2009; Confraria & Godinho 2015; Onyancha 2016; Godinho 2013)....
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...Although few studies analysis (Abrahams et al. 2009; Confraria & Godinho 2015; Pouris 2010; Pouris & Ho 2014; Onyancha 2016; Boshoff 2010) have investigated Tanzanians research productivity, there is still no comprehensive study that has been conducted to examine the patterns and impact of research…...
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References
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"A scientometric assessment of the S..." refers background in this paper
...‘‘These databases currently provide the best source of information to identify the basic research activity across all countries and fields of science’’ (Tijssen 2007)....
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...Examples include Shrum (1997), Narvaez-Berthelemot et al. (2002), Ingwersen and Jacobs (2004), Tijssen (2007), Pouris (1996) and others....
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159 citations
119 citations