Mapping the landscape of education research by scholars based in sub-Saharan Africa Insights from the African Education Research Database

How equitable are South-North partnerships in education research? Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

“…1 is divided into three groups to indicate whether the number per country is 'high' (more than 25 publications), 'medium' (more than 10 and below 25 publications) or 'low' (10 or less publications). To some degree, this reflects the number of publications by each country overall, as many of those in the 'high' category are also ones with the greatest volume of outputs (Rose et al 2019). To take this into account, the figures in parenthesis indicate the number of publications involving collaboration as a proportion of publications in the database for each country.…”

“…Table 1 reveals inequalities in the participation of different countries in international research collaborations. Overall, the countries in the region with the highest volume of peer-reviewed research outputs in English included in the analysis are Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia (Rose et al 2019). It is, in general, these same countries with the greatest volume of research output overall which are the biggest collaborators in internationally co-authored publications.…”

“…Overall, international partnerships are largely concentrated amongst a few countries, with half the countries in the region having two or less collaborations outside the region. These are the countries with the lowest volume of research outputs overall (Rose et al 2019).…”

“…In this regard, there is some evidence that South Africa, which publishes three and a half times more than Nigeria (the country with the highest number of publications in the database), can promote closer collaboration in the region. For example, Rose et al (2019) found that out of 75 publications involving institutions in different sub-Saharan Africa countries, over two thirds are co-authored by researchers with an affiliation to South African institutions.…”

“…Further analysis of how funding relates to different partnerships confirms this expectation. Overall, only around 15% of publicaitons included in the database report receiving external funding (Rose et al 2019). Publications involving collaboration between African-based researchers and those based outside the region are far more likely to attract funding (31%) compared with publications involving collaboration among researchers across African countries (3%).…”