Trend of African scientific output and impact 1996 –2015

Abstract

It is important to analyse the scientific performance of nations to help evaluate the effectiveness of current policies and to aid future planning. In response, this article reports a trend analysis of the number of Scopus-indexed publications and their average impact for 48 African countries 1996-2015, using fractional authorship counting and field normalised log citation rates, relative to the world average. The results show an encouraging and almost universal trend for African countries to increase their share of the world’s output during this period, but most also experienced a decrease in their citation impact relative to the world average. The decline in relative citation impact is not an immediate cause for concern since it may be a by-product of increasing research capacity reducing the reliance upon international collaboration. Thus, African policymakers should be broadly satisfied with their efforts so far, but should be aware of the long-term need to reverse the declining trend in average research impact.

Keywords: African Science, Scientometrics, Citation Analysis, Longitudinal Analysis