Africa

According to a pan-African international study funded by the Robert Bosch Stiftung Foundation in Germany and the International Development Research Center in Canada, the majority of research conducted in Africa is still financed by European, US and Chinese agencies. As a result, these publications are more likely to publish the results of international collaborations than of local research organizations. The study took place over 4 years and surveyed 5,700 African researchers.

Data in the study indicated that the EU, the US NIH and UK’s Wellcome Trust operate as the biggest funders of African research. Also included in the top 10 were the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, DFG, a German research-funding agency, as well as Spain’s federal government. Only two African organizations—South Africa’s National Research Foundation, which headed the list, and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Tunisia—made the top 10.

Due to the lack of national funding agencies on the African continent, many countries in Africa are highly reliant on international funding. Scientists receiving over half of their research funding from foreign sources received more funding on average than scientists that primarily received national funding. For example, on average, the surveyed scientists’ reported funding over 3 years of $5,000, but 128 researchers heavily dependent on international funding reported receiving funding support of over $1 million. Most of these 128 respondents were largely based in Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia, and work in the health or natural sciences. Additionally, certain fields, such as agriculture and health sciences, have simpler access to funding,

Data in the report illustrate that scientists on the continent have more than tripled their scientific output between 2005 and 2016, from 15,000 research papers to 54,000, respectively. In addition, Africa’s share of global scientific output has reached 3.2%.

Source: Nature

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