Many studies have reported that Africa is grossly underproductive in the production of scientific knowledge.

Studies between 2012 and 2021 using data from Web of Science and Scopus show that Africa, which constitutes about 16 percent of the world’s population, contributed to less than three percent of the global scientific publications.

According to according to a University of KwaZulu-Natal study whose findings were published in the Journal of Scientometric Research last year, Africa only produces 7.6 percent of contributions to the world of science and one-third of all international publications in tropical medicine.

There is a great disparity among the countries on the continent with the North being more prolific than sub-Saharan African countries, with about three-quarters of the sample of publications originating from six countries– South Africa, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Nigeria and Morocco.

“To be precise, 11 percent of the countries produced 74 percent of the total number of publications in science in Africa, and 89 percent of the countries made up only 26 percent of the total,” the study pointed out.

Now scientists speaking at the Annual Meeting of the Global Research Council held from June 1 in The Hague, Netherlands, have highlighted the need for international institutions to involve African actors in research.

“Often scientists come with solutions that are elaborated outside Africa and without the participation of Africa,” said Yaya Sangare, executive secretary of the Programme d’Appui Stratégique à la Recherche Scientifique-PASRES , a research support entity in Ivory Coast.

Partnerships

In the past two decades, there were 508,102 African scientific publications from 2001-18, while the rest of the world produced 6,688,920 publications.

“Understanding local problems is key to providing effective solutions. This requires equitable partnerships and a deep understanding of the problems so that effective and feasible solutions can be found locally,” said Ottoline Leyser, executive director of UK Research and Innovation.

Vice-president of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Thelma Krug, underscored in her speech the need to strengthen scientific cooperation between the Global North and Global South.

“At the IPCC we look at the scientific literature produced around the world, and we see big knowledge gaps in the Global South,” said Krug.

She cited studies on solar geoengineering, the modification of solar radiation to mitigate the effects of climate change, which she says are being developed without the participation of countries in the South, which will be widely impacted if this technology is implemented on a global scale.

“Research funders need to keep in mind that a little more fairness is needed in this regard,” Krug said.

According to Krug, funding agencies could help reduce these knowledge gaps by building the capacity of local research groups.
The Global Research Council (GRC) – an entity that brings together the world’s main public funding agencies – has created the new Working Group on Multilateral Engagement, tasked with enabling collaboration between scientists from different countries.

“The GRC was conceived as a platform for sharing best practices and networking among the leaders of funding agencies. And that’s quite important, because when we agree on a set of principles, it’s easier to launch a joint call for proposals, for example,” noted executive secretary of the GRC, Euclides de Mesquita Neto.

Collaborations

Marc Schiltz, president of Science Europe – the association that represents Europe’s major research organisations – said the organisation has been trying for several years to develop simpler mechanisms by which funders can encourage transnational and cross-border collaborations, such as having proposals evaluated by only one agency, although all those involved contribute to the funding.

“Ultimately, the view is that people who are closest to the challenges are best able to solve them,” said president of the International Development Research Centre, Julie Shouldice.

The top 10 high-producing countries in science in Africa are South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania.

Publications in science in Africa have increased 20 times over the past 19 years, according to Professor Radhamany Sooryamoorthy of the school of social sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, whose findings were published in the Journal of Scientometric Research in January 2022, titled ‘Science in Africa: Contemporary trends in research’.

In the past two decades, there were 508,102 African scientific publications from 2001-18, while the rest of the world produced 6,688,920 publications.

The top 10 high-producing countries in science in Africa are South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania.

The initiative began to be articulated about two years ago by representatives of FAPESP-The São Paulo Research Foundation, a public foundation that provides grants, funds and programs to support research, education and innovation, JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency), RCN (Research Council of Norway), and DFG (German Research Foundation), having received official approval by the GRC Governing Board in March 2023.

The DFG’s Director of International Affairs, Marcus Wilms, explains that legal barriers prevent the money used to promote research from crossing national borders.

“Bilateral collaborations, in which each country funds its own researchers in collaborative projects, have been one way of dealing with this problem. But it becomes much more complicated when there are many partners involved.”

One of the main difficulties, according to Wilms, is managing the different expectations that entities have regarding the results of a research project.

“Agencies like the DFG seek impact in terms of knowledge. We believe the other impacts, social and economic, for example, derive from this. But there are other organizations whose activities must necessarily be tied to national priorities, they are very mission-oriented and they seek to fulfill a specific goal. So the idea of the working group is to create new mechanisms to facilitate all this articulation,” he explained.