Assessment of Scientific Production in the African Union, 2005–2010

It is now accepted that science, technology and innovation (STI) are key components of sustainable development in modern economies and that STI data are pivotal for evidence-based policy-making. As Africa progresses towards sustainable development, its socio-economic and environmental transformations are highly linked to its STI capabilities at national and regional levels (AOSTI 2013). To that end, Africa's Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action (CPA) outlined programmes for improving policy conditions by strengthening Africa's capacity to develop and use STI indicators. The successor to the CPA, namely the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA 2024), has brought to the forefront new dimensions of monitoring and evaluation of Africa's development in relation to the impact value chain of the S&T system.

The African Union's interest in and commitment to developing and using STI indicators for evidence-based policy-making has grown significantly, culminating in the Heads of State Decision Assembly/AU/Dec.452 (XX), which created the African Observatory of Science, Technology and Innovation (AOSTI). AOSTI serves as a continental repository of STI statistics and a source of policy analysis.

As a collective, Africa's initiated measurement of STI is still in its infancy. Only South Africa and Tunisia have thus far produced notable S&T statistics. Nonetheless, the first significant attempt to measure S&T activities in Africa commenced in 2007 when the AU–NEPAD launched the African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (ASTII) initiative. It is in that context that participating countries have conducted R&D and Innovation surveys and collected data to populate some mutually adopted indicators. For R&D, two main input indicators, namely gross domestic expenditure on research and experimental development (GERD) and R&D personnel, were selected. The resulting outcomes of the implementation of the ASTII project were published as the African Innovation Outlook (AIO 2010). The AIO 2010 included a bibliometric analysis of scientific output, but was limited to only 19 participating countries.

This report expands the scope of the 2010 bibliometric analysis and considers the scientific production of the African Union as a whole.

The output indicators described in this project are based on the use of bibliometric methods, which means that they are primarily measurements of the production and dissemination of scientific publications. There are clearly limitations to these indicators, and they should not be used in isolation. Nonetheless, they serve as a valuable description of gross levels of scientific production and scientific impact, as the communication of scientific results is highly predicated on the publication of journal articles. Furthermore, in this study steps have been taken to mitigate shortcomings wherever possible, including the selection of a bibliometric database with better representation of African publications.