JANUARY OF R&D PRIORITY AREAS OF SOUTH AFRICA AND ITS S&T COLLABORATIVE PARTNERS ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT. page. page.

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1 Joint Call Authors Contribution to Research Output Amongst Countries with Active Joint Calls OF R&D PRIORITY AREAS OF SOUTH AFRICA AND ITS S&T COLLABORATIVE PARTNERS ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT JANUARY 2018 page 6 - Executive Summary page 18 - Methodological Framework page 53 - Joint Call Authors Contribution to Research Output Amongst Countries with Active Joint Calls science & technology Department: Science and Technology REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

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3 3 A SCIENTOMETRIC ASSESSMENT OF R&D PRIORITY AREAS OF SOUTH AFRICA AND ITS S&T COLLABORATIVE PARTNERS ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT Page of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Background to the Scientometric Study Background to the study Scope of the Study Content and Structure of the Report Aims and objectives Aim Objectives Methodological Framework Scientometrics, using bibliometric techniques Desk Review Definitions... 19

4 4 5.4 Concepts, Questions and Indicator Classification(s) Results Outside-In A Global Snap-shot of Government(s) Expenditure in Research and Development (GERD) Publication Output of the Category 1 Countries in the Global Picture ( ) Publication Output A closer Look at the African Picture ( ) Number of Publications Annual Growth of Publication Output Numbers Growth Per Country compared to Category Average Publication by Type of Affiliation Rank According to Number, Per Million Population and Annual Growth Rate Degree and Trend of Collaboration Strength of Collaborative Linkages with South Africa Top 20 Most Prolific Institutions Most Productive Areas/Fields Of Collaboration Ranking in Terms of Number of Publications - Category 1 and Ranking in Terms of Per Million Population of Publications Produced - Category 1 and Other Intra-Africa (Apart from SA) and Intercontinental Africa Collaborations Joint Call Authors Contribution to Research Output Amongst Countries with Active Joint Calls Period Preceding Joint Calls versus Joint Call period Joint Call Output Leading Areas South Africa is Co-publishing with Joint Call Countries Impact of Joint call Funding (Discoveries, Human Capacity Development and Infrastructure/Funding... 59

5 Impact Indicator 1 : Capacity Development of researchers and students Impact Indicator 2 : Discoveries Impact Indicator 3 : Research Infrastructure and funding Comprehensive Summative report of Category 1 & 2 and Recommendations Assessment and Comparison of Capacity of Category 1 Countries (Bilateral s Activated by Joint Calls) Number of Publications Publication Growth Patterns Per capita versus number of publication as an indicator Degree of Collaboration Most Productive Institutions Fields/Subject Areas of Research Individual Country Productivity in Research Areas Linkage of Algorithm to Per Million Output Analysis Assessment and Capacity of Joint Call Contribution to Research Output Amongst Countries with Active Joint Calls Analysis of Joint Call Agreements Capacity of Countries with only Bilateral s not yet activated by Joint Calls ST&I cooperation priority setting going forward Proposed Priority Setting Framework Proposed Situational Analysis CONCLUSION RECOMMENDATIONS... 75

6 6 List of Tables Table 1 : DST/NRF Intra-Africa Engagements Table 2 : Category 1 Countries with active NRF-DST bi-laterals and associated priorities areas Table 3 : Search Terms Table 4 : Conceptual framework, questions and Indicators Table 5 : Institution Affiliation Types Table 6 : Rank of Countries According to the three Bibliometric Indicators Table 7 : Rank of Countries According to the three Bibliometric Indicators Table 8 : Strength of Collaboration Category Table 9 : Strength of Collaboration Category Table 10 : Most Prolific Institutions category Table 11 : Most Prolific Institutions Category Table 19 : Ranking of Output Number In Areas/Fields Of Collaboration Category Table 40 : Ranking of Output Number In Areas/Fields Of Collaboration Category Table 14 : Ranking Output per million in Various Fields Category Table 15 : Ranking Output per million in Various Fields Category Table 16 : Other Intra-Africa and Outside Africa Collaborations of Category 1 Countries Table 17 : Other Intra-Africa and Outside Africa Collaboration other than SA Category Table 18 : Percentage Contribution Table 19 : Top 10 Areas South Africa is Co-publishing with Each Category 1 Countries Table 20 : Joint Call Table 21: Proportion of Projects Supported Table 22 : Most Prolifically Funded Institutions In SA Table 23 : Discoveries Table 24 : Research Infrastructure and Funding... 60

7 7 Executive Summary BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION South Africa, through the DST and NRF has signed bilateral science and technology agreements with 22 other African countries. The bilateral agreements can be delineated into two categories namely i) Category 1 Bilateral agreements activated by Joint Calls (Algeria, Egypt,,, Mozambique, Zambia, Namibia and Angola) ii) Category 2 Bilateral Agreements not activated (Botswana, Cameroon, DRC, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda, Zimbabwe) The first joint calls were initiated in A collective total of 13 research priority areas were identified. These are Material Science and Nanotechnology; Space Sciences & Remote Sensing; Information and Communication Technology; Indigenous Knowledge Systems; Biosciences & Biotechnology; Health Sciences; Social Sciences & Humanities; Geosciences & Mineral Resources; Energy; Environment & Climate Change; Mathematical Sciences; Agriculture and Laser Technology. Bilateral agreements were activated for corporation in between five and nine of these priority areas. SCOPE OF THE STUDY Of the aforementioned 22 bilateral agreements, this study focuses on 8 agreements per Category 1 above. Tunisia and Uganda Joint Calls were initiated towards the end of the period under review and these two countries, for purposes of this study, were clustered under Category 2. This study was commissioned to firstly assess the impact of the investment in joint calls and secondly to inform future plans, strategies and engagements within Africa. AIM The objective of the present work was to conduct a higher level scientometric assessment, combined with desk study, of intra-african research collaboration between South Africa and its partners on the African continent. The study focused on the period 2008 (time of the first joint call) to December 2016 inclusive. OBJECTIVES Using scientometric and other appropriate methodology, the objectives of this study were three-fold as follows: i. Category 1 - To conduct an assessment of engagements with countries in Africa that have both bilateral agreements and active Joint Call Project(s) with South Africa ii. Category 2 To conduct an assessment of engagements with countries that have only bilateral agreements with South Africa iii. Integrate key findings in Category 1 & 2, thus providing broad recommendations on the way forward METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK The overall methodological framework was an Outside-in/Inside-Out Analysis. Outside-in involved Scientometrics, using bibliometric techniques focusing on literature indexed in Scopus database. Inside-out involved a desk study of various DST/NRF documentation including but not limited to bilateral agreements documentation; Call guidelines; Funded projects; Financial data; Joint Project research reports. RESULTS Outside-In : Category 1 Countries: Scientometrics, using bibliometric techniques contributed only 1.48% to the global publication output and 59% to the overall

8 8 African output. Generally, output was dominated by South Africa and Egypt. Growth rate by Number : Overall compounded average annual growth rate of 13%. The most significant growth was during 2008 and 2009 (20.47%) with only 7.9% in Lowest was 2.19% recorded in Overall growth rate is declining. Publication Type : The journal articles formed 74.4% (244,503) of output, conference papers (14.5%), reviews (4.2%), book chapters (2.7%), letters (1.2%), editorials (0.9), notes (0.8%) and others (1.4%). Publications per million of population : South Africa was the highest with 2925 per million followed by Egypt (1296), Algeria (1006), Namibia (830), (396). Zambia,, Mozambique and Angola produced 220, 208, 84 and 32 respectively. Per million population was found to be a more accurate predictor and measurement of productivity. Growth Rate per country : Angola recorded the highest growth rate (17%) followed by Namibia (16%), Egypt (14%), Algeria, (13%) and and Zambia both at (11%). SA experienced the lowest growth rate of 9%. SA and both slowed down while Egypt, Namibia and Angola grew above the category average of 13%. Rank According to Indicators : Whilst SA and Egypt dominate the growth in numbers, Algeria and Namibia ranking highly when output is measured per million population. Angola and Namibia exhibited the highest average annual growth rate whilst SA was the lowest. Degree of Collaboration : The degree of collaboration among the category 1 countries was high and is on the increase rising steadily from to Strength of Collaborative Linkages with South Africa : demonstrated the strongest collaboration link with South Africa (1809) followed by (860), Namibia (768), Zambia (636), Egypt (578), Mozambique (393), Algeria (52) and Angola (48). Although, Egypt and Algeria rank very highly in terms of number and/or per million population of papers produced, the low number of papers produced collaboratively with South Africa is concerning. Top 20 Most Prolific Institutions from Category 1 countries : South Africa (11) and Egyptian (8) institutions dominate the list. Algeria is the only other appearing on the list. A reason for South African publications dominating this list may be due the funding system that is subsidised by the SA government which may not be the case in other countries. Publication by Type of Affiliation : 160 institutions were identified of which 136 (85 %) are institutions of higher learning, followed by 43 (26.8) government agencies and 1 hospital. Completely absent were private organisations and international organisations. Publication Fields : The most productive field of publication was medicine followed by engineering, agricultural sciences, computer sciences, physics and astronomy, the latter especially in Egypt. The nomenclature of priority areas per joint calls is different and does not correspond to international conventions of research area identification in most global databases such as SCOPUS, Web of Science, Thomson Reuters Essential Science IndicatorsSM database to mention but a few. Per Country Productivity in Research Areas : The productivity was ranked according to individual fields based on Scopus Nomenclature. The top ranks are dominated by South Africa and Egypt and not very far behind are Algeria,, and Zambia which are relatively strong in some areas. In the ranking log-table, a discernible pattern clearly identified four quadrants as follows: i. Upper Left Quadrant - The strong and relatively strong countries in particular fields ii. Lower Left Quadrant - Weak areas amongst

9 9 otherwise strong countries iii. Upper Right Quadrant Relatively mildly strong areas amongst lower rank countries iv. Lower Right Quadrant - Weak areas in ALL countries This quadrant model, an equivalent of which does not currently exist, is strongly recommended for decision making when planning bilateral engagements in the future. Country Productivity in Research Areas : Productivity ranking was also conducted per million population using the above mentioned model. Analysis revealed a different pattern wherein countries like Algeria were revealed as leaders in important fields such as computer science and astronomy. The model identifies that smaller countries like Namibia are producing proportionately high number of publications per million inhabitants. This model, when applied per million population presents a more accurate depiction of the low output by Angola and Mozambique. This model is also analysable based on the four-quadrant model presented above. Research Productivity compared to : A comparison of the period under review against a similar length period immediately preceding revealed that productivity increased more than five-fold from 952 during the earlier period to 5292 in the period under review. Joint Call Authors Contribution : Proportionately however, from an outside-in perspective, joint call authors contributed only 0.23% to the overall publication output amongst the Category 1 countries. The highest number (379) of publications was by South African researchers followed by (121), Namibia (83), Algeria (47), Angola (37), Egypt (33), Mozambique (19) and lastly Zambia (16). Strength of Collaboration : has the strongest collaborations with SA followed by Namibia, Algeria, Angola, Egypt,, Mozambique and Zambia in that order. Top Areas of Collaboration : With the Category 1 Countries, SA collaborates mainly in medicine followed by agricultural and biological sciences except with Algeria where the interaction is strongest in physics and astronomy. Intra- and Intercontinental Collaborations : A significant amount of research takes place outside the joint calls. Intra-continental, a study of the patterns reveals regional, political and language influences whilst intercontinentally, added to this list is financial influence (e.g. USA). Outside-In Category 2 countries: Contributed 0.76% to the global output and 30.2% of publication output from Africa. This was less than Category 1 countries whose output was 1.48% and 59% globally and in Africa respectively.the output from Category 1 countries was higher than Category 2 countries with or without output from SA. Most Prolific Country : Tunisia with 51,420 and Nigeria (48,582). The rest of the countries had significantly less output with Ethiopia (11,806), Ghana (10,575), Uganda (9,830), Cameroon (8,652), Sudan (5,306), Senegal (5,170), Zimbabwe (4335), Malawi (3946), Botswana (3736), Congo (3257), Madagascar (2,311), Rwanda (1870), Lesotho (359) and Mauritius(323). Publication Output Growth : Publication output growth is again dominated by Tunisia and Algeria being the best amongst the rest of the countries who had minimal or no increase at all. However, like category 1 countries, Growth amongst category 2 countries is also declining. Types of Publications : There were 77.7% (131,842) journal articles, 11.8% Conference papers, 3.5% reviews, 3.1% book Chapters, 1.7% letters, 0.5% editorials, 0.8% notes and the rest were 0.9%.

10 10 Per Million Population Output : Tunisia had the highest output of publications per million of population. However, what was interesting is that the output of smaller population countries with less publication output in terms of number such as Botswana, is enhanced once evaluated per million population publication. These findings are consistent with the findings from countries in Category 1 and confirm the suggestion that the per capita indicator is a more accurate predictor of productivity. Per Country publication growth : Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda Mauritius, Ghana and Congo all exhibited positive growth with Rwanda being the most significant. The rest had a growth below the average. Overall Publication Growth Rate : Growth in terms of research publication output is currently on the decline. Ranking : A comparative analysis of three indicators namely number of publications, per capita publication output and annual growth rate was conducted. Whilst it is expected that Tunisia and Nigeria would dominate the rankings, it was interesting to note that countries like Ghana, Botswana, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Senegal, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Malawi feature amongst the top ten (10) most prolific countries across all three indicators. Degree and Trend of Collaboration : The degree of collaboration increased from 0.89 (89%) in 2008 to 0.93 (93%) in Strength of Collaboration with South Africa : Nigeria is ranked highest producing 2462 papers with South African authors, followed by Zimbabwe, Uganda, Ghana, Botswana, Cameroon, Malawi, Ethiopia, Congo DR, Sudan, Rwanda, Senegal, Tunisia, Madagascar, Lesotho, Mauritius in that order. Of concern however is the ratio of SA papers produced from the collaboration k]pkwith each particular country. Collaboration through co-publication with Nigeria contributed only 1.74% to SA s total whilst the rest were less than 1%. Top Areas of Collaboration : amongst the top-10, medicine ranks highest followed by agricultural and biological sciences; social sciences; biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology; physics and astronomy; environmental science; immunology and microbiology; engineering; chemistry and earth and planetary Sciences. Most Prolific Institutions : Tunisian and Nigerian institutions are very prolific. What is very interesting however to see institutions from Uganda, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Ghana, Botswana and Benin are also relatively highly prolific. Publication Institutional Affiliation : 73 (74 %) of the publications came from Institutions of Higher Learning, followed by 15 (15.5%) research institutions affiliated to the latter or government agency, 9 Hospitals (9.5%) and 2 (2.5%) government agencies. Clearly absent were private sector affiliation. Output in Areas/Fields of Collaboration : Medicine dominates productivity however, the general pattern is not very different to that of the Category 1 countries. Ranking of output number versus per million population in areas/fields of collaboration found that the latter is a more accurate indicator for measuring the productivity of a country. So apart from Nigeria and Tunisia, there was significant research output in countries like Botswana and Senegal, Cameroon. A more in-depth situational analysis based on a recommended method demonstrated herein is recommended to inform future bilateral/multilateral engagements with other African countries. Intra- and Intercontinental Collaborations : A significant amount of research takes place outside the joint calls. Intra-continental, a study of the patterns reveals regional, political and language influences whilst intercontinentally, added to this list is financial influence (e.g. USA).

11 11 Inside-Out Desk Review Category 1 Indicator 1 : Capacity Development of researchers and students 229 projects were funded involving 44 SA research organisations, 219 Principle Investigators (32% female, 68% male). Over 1100 researchers were involved amongst which were 340 postgraduates trained. 394 mobility activities through exchange visits were undertaken fostering 272 institutional interactions intra-africa and 56 intercontinental institutional interactions. Research Areas Supported : The highest proportion of projects supported were in biosciences and biotechnology (26.1%) followed by agriculture (14.3%), environment and climate change (8.7%), material science and nanotechnology (8.7% and energy (7%). Others were Space sciences and remote sensing (5.7%), and health (5.2%). The rest of the fields formed less than 5% of those supported during the joint call. Most prolific institutions supported through Joint Calls : The top 10 South African institutions were University of Cape Town ranked highest with 31 projects followed by University of Pretoria (30), CSIR (18), Stellenbosch University (16), University of the Witwatersrand (15), Agricultural Research Council (12), University of Kwazulu Natal (12) and Rhodes University, University of Johannesburg and Western Cape (each with 11) Indicator 2 : Discoveries The joint call projects resulted in discoveries in 9 of the 13 thematic areas. These included 5 discoveries in agricultural sciences, 3 in biosciences and biotechnology, 2 in biosciences combined with indigenous knowledge systems, 3 in environmental and climate change, 1 in geosciences & mineral resources, 5 in Health Sciences, 3 in Information and communication technology, 1 in material cience and nanotechnology and 1 in palaeontology. Impact Indicator 3 : Research Infrastructure and funding Grant terms and conditions for the joint calls were restrictive. The funds were earmarked specifically to support travel costs, running expenses and workshops/ conferences. Consequently, there joint calls have not supported infrastructure improvement. R was allocated to each South Africa researcher and a total of approximately R44 million was invested. The projects also leveraged > R10million additional funds for the projects from other sources. CONCLUSION This study was commissioned by the DST-NRF in Feb 2017 with the aim of conducting an assessment of research and development priority areas of South Africa and its science, technology and innovation collaborative partners on the African continent. It has provided a higher level perspective of intra- and inter-continental research activities. From an Outside-In perspective, the volume of activity appears smaller than is desirable if the potential contribution of Africa s researchers is to be realized for the benefit of its populations. The trends for both Category 1 and 2 countries, compared to the global output, is significantly small. These findings corroborate the conclusions of previous studies which identified that African research is still in an embryonic stage on the African continent. Of concern is the fact that growth has slowed down significantly. Although the publication output numbers more than doubled over the period 2008 to 2016 this growth has slowed down significantly especially in the years 2015 (2.19%) and 2016 (7.9%) from the percentage observed at the beginning of the period in 2008 (20.47)%. Overall, the growth productivity amongst these countries is on the decline. Ranking of Output Number versus per million population in areas/fields of collaboration found that the latter is a more accurate indicator for measuring the productivity of a country.

12 12 There seems to be no strategic collaborative partnerships between the most prolific countries. Furthermore, there seems to be no strategic approach to determination of collaboration in particular priority areas e.g. between SA and Egypt have little collaboration despite being the continents first and second highest producers. From the joint calls, there seems to be no clear pattern as to how parties to bilateral agreements arrive at common priority areas. Furthermore, the nomenclature used does not correspond to international conventions of research area identification in most global databases including SCOPUS, Web of Science, Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators SM database. Furthermore, there is no clear strategy used to arrive at research collaboration areas based on individual country profiles and/or strengths in different fields. A ranking and decision making system/algorithm has been proposed to support bilateral and/or multilateral agreement decision making in the future. This algorithm is based on the more accurate per million indicator. Universities dominate the output and the private sector remains largely absent. Strategies to link government priority areas to academic-industryprivate partnerships need to be developed. These can encourage increasingly robust and collaborative growth as a result of growing economic volatility, competition among emerging economies and a rapidly evolving technological landscape. These can redress the current declining output from Africa. Outside-In analysis using Scientometrics employing bibliometric techniques, suggests that the Joint Call Projects had little impact on research productivity, contributing only 0.23% of the publication output. However, a desk study using more qualitative approach revealed significant impact in terms of capacity building, discoveries and financing. Whilst the former suggests low return on investment of the R44 million by DST/NRF, the latter methods suggest otherwise. However, strategies need to be developed to ensure that the Inside-Out versus Outside-In perspectives are reconciled. RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Bottlenecks of Joint Call Funds : Conditions for utilisation (only mobility and running expenses), the amounts awarded (only R ) and the duration (only 2-years) of the support restrict the possibility of positive outcomes and consequently impact. These need to be restructured in order to link joint calls to scholarships and infrastructure support. 2. Selection of Research Priority Areas : Apart from research priority area nomenclature alignment to international conventions, the use of a more innovative and/or scientific decision support system in identifying these research areas is recommended. A practical model/framework, as recommended in this report, would be very useful when planning bilateral engagements in the future. This can link priority area selection and award of joint calls to individual or collective country profiles taking into consideration variables such as size of STI community resource capacity, human, infrastructure, prolific institutions and otherwise. 3. Multilateral instead of Bilateral intra- Africa Corporation : For increased synergy, it is strongly recommended that intra-africa collaboration be extended to multilateral partnerships guided by collective interests amongst countries. A further extension to this would be the consideration of establishment of an ST&I Research Africa organisation that can promote the collective interests of the research funding and research performing stakeholders in Africa.

13 13 4. Research Sensitisation : Researchers need to be informed of the bigger picture in order for them to meaningfully and consistently report relevant information and aim towards important and visible outputs, such as publications, support of postgraduate students especially PhDs. 5. Monitoring Tools : There is a lack of tools to actively monitor research progress and share outcomes on projects undertaken in bilateral agreements. Tools need to be developed that will guide collaboration as well as collect and analyse interim and or final project reports in a timely manner for decision making 6. Non-public Funding : There is a lot of research activity going on outside the joint call initiatives funded by private sources. There is a need to study the patterns of private source research funding in order to align the with national priority areas and to avoid STI research agenda being dominated by international partner interests with or without consideration of national government priorities. The nonpublic sector (including the international funders) should be integrated into the design and implementation of joint programmes. This will also minimise research activity duplication and increase collective impact encouraging a coordinated approach in addressing national, regional and continental challenges. 1.1 Background to the study The African Union s (AU) Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Strategy for Africa 2024 (STISA- 2024) 1 recognizes STI as one of the major drivers and 1 African Union Commission (2013). African Union Science, Technology & Innovation Strategy for Africa _6200.pdf enablers to achieving development goals of the African Union and its Member States. The strategy articulates that Africa s sustained growth, competitiveness and economic transformation will require sustained investment in new technologies and continuous innovation in strategic areas such as agriculture, clean energy, education, health and bio-sciences among others. STISA-2024 creates the framework for South Africa to play a key facilitating role to enhance the mainstreaming of STI in Sub-Saharan Africa. 1 Despite the high STI milestones agenda set by the AU, Africa s investments in STI remains low compared to other regions in Europe, Asia and America. For instance, the continents low gross expenditure on research and development (GERD) is below the global average (i.e. currently at 2%). The country with the highest GERD in the Africa is (0.79%) while Lesotho has the lowest regional allocation at 0.01% (UNESCO, 2017). 2 The limited financial resources allocated to STI on the continent stresses the need to further mobilize and optimize resources through joint projects aimed at addressing common regional challenges. This entails developing effective platforms and tools that are able to benchmark, take stock, monitor and measure the success and return on investment of these joint collaborations and how they in turn address the socio-economic challenges of respective societies. In partnership with a growing number of African countries, South Africa (SA) through the Department of Science and Technology (DST) has signed bilateral science and technology agreements with 22 other African countries. The aim of the agreements is to facilitate research collaboration between African countries or in particular, South Africa and its partners on the continent. The joint programs are designed to accelerate shortage of skills and STI development by the African countries. To support the effective implementation of bilateral projects, the South Africa government and its regional counterparts allocate financial, human and other resources. In South Africa, about half of the STI investment is from public funds. These funds are

14 14 mostly channelled through public institutions that competitively fund research conducted at public institutions as well as directly through allocation of funds to public research performing institutions. The other half of STI investment is collectively funded by universities, philanthropist, developing partners, private and other sectors. The landscape of public STI players can be categorised under: i) Institutions that competitively allocate grant for research as well as conduct research such as the NRF and the South African Medical Research Council (MRC) ii) Institutions that commission research and directly produce knowledge such as universities, the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) iii) Other government departments and entities that commission and consume research outcomes. The DST actions the majority of its STI bilateral agreements through its implementing agency, the National Research Foundation (NRF). The NRF promotes and supports research through funding and human capital development to promote the global knowledge economy in contributing to socio-economic and sustainable growth on the African continent. In addition the NRF through its International Relations and Cooperation s (IRC) Directorate has prioritised intra-africa research and is working closely with the DST to lead the promotion and support of continental and regional scientific research collaboration. In its 2020 Strategy, the NRF not only aims to enable the organisation to intensify and strengthen African networks to position South Africa in the international arena in order to drive the knowledge economy but to also catalyse societally beneficial research and development in support of knowledge generation, human capacity development and innovation. 3 The NRF, in line with its core mandate and its focus on Africa, has various strategic collaborative initiatives within Africa. Through these, it has been able to obtain and provide leverage through improved synergies between role players both in terms of supporting research and innovation, as well as developing the requisite human capacity on the continent. This approach is aligned with the evolving Africa Strategy at the International Cooperation and Resources (ICR) in the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

15 15 The NRF initiatives, instruments and engagements are clustered into four categories as presented in Table 1. Table 1 : DST/NRF Intra-Africa Engagements 4 Broad Area(s) Specific Areas(s) Bilateral Instruments Africa Corporation Direct Investment in bilateral projects Africa stakeholder research management workshops UK Newton fund Africa Mobility Grants Areas of Strategic Investment Africa very long interferometry baseline network (AVN) Southern African Young Scientists Summer Programme Global Research Council TWAS/NRF agreement for Mobility of Students from Africa SADC Engineering Needs and Numbers Study Student Scholarships SADC STI Policy Training Enabling Partnerships Strengthening and Funding STI for Africa International Council for Science (ICSU) Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) NRF-Carnegie Corporation of New York University Engagements Leveraging New Business Strengthening the Capacities of Science Granting Councils in Sub- Saharan Africa The Belmont Forum Under the Bilateral instruments initiative, SA through the DST and NRF has signed bilateral science and technology agreements with 22 other African countries. The aim of the agreements is to facilitate research collaboration between African countries or in particular, South Africa and its partners on the continent. The joint programs are designed to accelerate shortage of skills as well as ST and I development by the African countries. The bilateral agreements can be delineated into two categories namely

16 16 Category 1 Bilateral agreements activated through Joint Calls Category 2 Bilateral Agreements not activated Under category A, priority areas, between SA and other African country, for corporation were identified and calls released respectively. (Table 2) Table 2 : Category 1 Countries with active NRF-DST bilaterals and associated priorities areas Thematic Priorities Algeria Angola Egypt Mozambique Namibia Zambia Material Science and X X X X Nanotech Space Sciences & Remote Sensing X X X X X X ICT X X X X X X IKS X X X X X Biosciences & Biotech X X X X X X X Health Sciences X X Social Sciences & Humanities X Geosciences & Mineral Resources X X Energy X X X X Environment & Climate Change X X X X X Mathematical Sciences X Agriculture X Laser Technology X X X 2.0 Scope of the Study It is the expectation of the bilateral partners that benefits should be derived from scientific research through collaboration in order to address respective socio-economic challenges. Investment in science, technology and innovation should link national research priority areas, human resource and infrastructure development as well as to generally impact or effect positive change/benefit to the society, economy, public policy or services, or quality of life of the bilateral countries population. From the aforementioned 22 bilateral agreements, only eight (8) agreements were active at the time this report was commissioned. Joint calls with Tunisia and Uganda were not

17 17 included amongst these due to that fact that they were only recently commissioned. The joint calls with these 8 countries have resulted in at least 229 joint projects valued at approximately R44m being supported with the first joint call launched in Consequently the scope of this study was to assess the impact of this investment using appropriate methods, the results of which would inform future DST and NRF plans and strategies. 3.0 Content and Structure of the Report The content of this study is divided into 9 chapters outlined as follows Chapter 1 deals with the background Chapter 2 gives the Scope of the study Chapter 3 provides the structure Chapter 4 outlines the aims and objectives Chapter 5 gives the overall methodological framework Chapter 6 presents the results of the Outside-In view for both Category 1 and 2 countries Chapter 7 gives the Category 1 Joint Call Authors Contribution to Research Output Amongst Countries with Active Joint Calls Chapter 8 give a summative analysis of both categories 1 and 2 Chapter 9 presents the conclusion and recommendations 4.0 Aims and objectives 4.1 Aim The objective of the present work was to conduct a higher level scientometric assessment, combined with desk study, of intra-african research collaboration between South Africa and its partners on the African continent. Although the study touched on data from 2001 to 2007, the main focus was on the period 2008 (time of the first joint call) to December 2016 inclusive.

18 Objectives Using Scientometric and other appropriate methodology, the objectives of this study were threefold as follows: A. Category 1 Countries (Algeria, Egypt,,, Mozambique, Zambia, Namibia and Angola) a. To conduct a scientometric study using bibliometric methodology (Outside-in) b. To conduct a desk study (qualitative) to measure the impact of the Joint Call Project(s)(Inside-out) 5.0 Methodological Framework The overall methodological framework was an Outside-in/Inside-Out Analysis. (Figure 1) Outside-In involved Scientometrics, using bibliometric techniques focusing on literature indexed in Scopus database. Inside-Out involved a desk study of various DST/NRF documentation including but not limited to bilateral agreements documentation; call guidelines; funded projects; financial data; joint project research reports. Figure 1 : Outside-In and Inside-Out Analysis B. Category 2 Countries (Botswana, Cameroon, DRC, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda, Zimbabwe) a. To conduct a scientometric study using bibliometric methodology to i. Benchmark/control/ comparator with the joint calls ii. iii. Establish basic research information especially on current engagements with South Africa Inform future plans with regards to the activation of bilateral agreements C. Integrate key finding in Category s 1 &2, thus providing broad recommendations on the way forward 5.1 Scientometrics, using bibliometric techniques Literature indexed in Scopus database were delimited to that published by researchers from South Africa in collaboration with the eight (8) countries, between 2008 and 2016, with both a bilateral agreement and an active joint calls as well as the sixteen with only a bilateral agreement were identified. The search terms used, among others, are presented in Table 3.

19 19 Table 3 : Search Terms SEARCH TERMS Department of Science and Technology National Research Foundation Joint call Bilateral agreement Multilateral agreement Collaboration Co-publication African country name* * Africa country name referring to each of the countries with bilateral agreements 5.2 Desk Review Various published and grey literature sources were reviewed. The former mainly constituted a review of international publications and the latter were various documents concerning the bilateral program such as: Bilateral agreements and relevant information Call guidelines List of funded projects Financial data Progress Reports Final Reports 5.3 Definitions The following bibliometric indicators were used to produce the data presented in the report. Publication Output : Number of scientific papers written by authors located in a given country or an institution over a particular period of time. Annual Growth Rate : In this report, annual growth rate (AGR) was calculated by the number of papers produced over a particular period, over the number of papers at the beginning of that period. The annual growth index from 2008 to 2009 for instance is calculated as follows: AGR = No. Papers 2009 No. Papers 2008 No. of papers 2008 Average Annual Growth Rate : In this report, the Average Annual Growth Rate (AAGR) was calculated as the average of the AGRs for the period under review namely 2008 to Papers per capita : In this report, this was the count of publications per country, divided by the number of population per million. The number of papers at the country level is weighted per capita (per million) using population statistics produced by each respective countries Census Bureau. 5 These statistics are available on an annual basis for every country and are estimated at mid-year. For example, if the South Africa published 3,345 papers in 200 and had a population of 50 million inhabitants at that time, then papers per capita is calculated as follows: 3,345/50 = 66.9 papers per million inhabitants. These statistics are computed per year and an average is calculated over the 12-year period.

20 20 Annual Growth Rate per million : In this report, annual growth rate per million (AGRPM) was calculated by the number of papers produced over a particular period, divided by the population of the country at the end of that period. In 2008 to 2009 for instance, it was calculated as follows: Discoveries : The number of significant new knowledge and understanding, contributions to discoveries with tangible impacts on society, any applications of research contributions to the development of enabling technologies, products and devices, uptake of research into policy and practice. AGR = N 2009 N 2008 Population in millions Where N 2009 and N 2008 refer to number of publications indexed in 2009 and 2008 respectively. Degree Of Collaboration : The degree of collaboration is defined as the ratio of the number of collaborative research papers to the total number of research papers between two countries or in a particular discipline during a certain period of time. The formula used herein is well documented and is expressed as where; 6 C = N m N m - N s C is the degree of collaboration in a discipline. N m is the number of multi-authored research papers in the discipline published during a year. N s is the number of single authored research papers in the discipline published during a year. Capacity Development of researchers and students: Number and cadre of researchers among those supported by the Joint Research Programme. Research Infrastructure and funding: Number of key contributions to the creation, development and maintenance of major research resources, significant impact on science funding and policy developments. 5.4 Concepts, Questions and Indicator Classification(s) Based on the scope of work and bid specifications, a conceptual framework was developed to systematically answer questions around Publication Output; Disciplinary Specialization; Distribution by institutional sector; Collaboration and Impact. (Table 4)

21 21 Table 4 : Conceptual framework, questions and Indicators Concept Main Question Indicator/Classification Publication Output 1. How many articles did a country/ countries publish and how did this number develop over time? 2. How the productivity of DST/NRF/Joint call supported collaborating researchers during the period compares with that of other research ongoing among the countries with joint calls? 1. Number and per capita of research publications indexed and trends Fraction of Joint Call researchers output/ productivity compared with the rest Disciplinary Specialization Distribution by institutional sector 1. In which subject field(s) does a country specialize? 2. What are the revealed priorities (focus areas) in S. Africa and the collaborating countries 3. Has collaboration grown more in the specified in the agreements disciplines/fields than in other disciplines/fields 1. How important are the various institutional sectors in research? 2. Which are the most prolific institutions in the various countries 1. Use of a subject classification into 26 main disciplines available in Scopus 2. Productivity sorted according to output per country 3. Comparison between country specified fields per agreements versus results from this analysis 1. Use of a classification into 4 institutional sectors: Higher Education; Government; Private; Health 2. Top 20 most prolific institution

22 22 Collaboration 1. What are the collaboration patterns with each other 2. Has the collaboration between South Africa and the other partner countries improved since the inception of the program 3. Which African countries collaborate mostly with South Africa 4. Is the collaboration focus mainly in the disciplines of strength of S. Africa or of the partner countries 5. How S. Africa can benefit from the collaboration? Impact 1. Discoveries 2. Capacity development and 3. Research infrastructure 1. Based on the number/proportion/degree of collaboration of articles co-authored by researchers from the different countries; 2. Trend of collaboration since Ranking of collaborations with SA (Number and/or per million) 4. Compare Table 1 priorities with results 5. Strategies 1. Significant new knowledge and understanding, contributions to discoveries with tangible impacts on society 2. Number and cadre of researchers among those supported by the Joint Research Programme 3. Number of key contributions to the creation, development and maintenance of major research resources, significant impact on science funding and policy developments.

23 Results 6.1 Outside-In A Global Snap-shot of Government(s) Expenditure in Research and Development (GERD) A literature survey found the most comprehensive data from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (Figure 2) Amongst the Category 1 Countries, Namibia and Algeria have between %, Zambia and Mozambique, % whilst South Africa, and are between %. No were recorded for Angola. Figure 2: Outside-in: A Global Snapshot Government Expenditure of R&D Intensity (GERD) 2

24 Publication Output of the Category 1 Countries in the Global Picture ( ) Category 1 countries produced 328, 573 publications between 2008 and 2016 inclusive (1.48%) of global output. For perspective, it should be noted that a country like the Netherlands alone produced 472, 594. (Figure 3) Figure 3 : Publications Global Picture ( ) Publication Output A closer Look at the African Picture ( ) A closer look within Africa found eight (8) category 1 countries contributed 59% whilst the sixteen (16) category 2 contributed 30% of the output. This means the rest of the continent, constituting thirty (30) countries contributed 11%. (Figure 4)

25 25 Figure 4 : Category 1 Countries contribution to African Output A further analysis revealed that the category 1 countries outperformed the category two country s even with thwe exclusion of South Africa. (Figure 5) Figure 5 : Category 1 Countries without SA contribution to African Output

26 Number of Publications Category 1 countries : Output was dominated mainly by South Africa and Egypt who produced 141,531 (41.1%) and 112, 663 (32.7%) respectively. (Figure 6) Figure 6 : Publication proportions Category 1 Algeria produced just under 40,000 whilst, a leading research country in East Africa produced just less than 20, 000. The rest were below 10,000 some more significantly than others like Angola for instance which produced only 617. The highest number in article publication amongst the nine countries was recorded in 2016 with 50,268 articles and as expected South African-dominance is even more pronounced.

27 27 Category 2 Countries: Output was dominated by Tunisia (51,420) and Nigeria (48,582). The rest of the countries had significantly less output with Ethiopia (11,806), Ghana (10,575), Uganda (9,830), Cameroon (8,652), Sudan (5,306), Senegal (5,170), Zimbabwe (4335), Malawi (3946), Botswana (3736), Congo (3257), Madagascar (2,311), Rwanda (1870), Lesotho (359) and Mauritius(323). (Figure 7) Figure 7 : Publication proportions Category 2 Mauritius Ethiopia 6.3 Annual Growth of Publication Output Numbers There has been a gradual decline in the publication average annual growth amongst category 1 countries. (Figure 8) Figure 8 : Average Annual Growth Rate Among Category 1 Countries

28 28 A similar pattern was observed from among the category two (2) countries. (Figure 9) Figure 9 : Average Annual Growth Rate Among Category 2 Countries Growth Per Country compared to Category Average Category 1: Compared to the 13% growth average amongst category 1 countries, South Africa and have both slowed down in terms of publication productivity as they are both 4 percentage points below the average while countries like Egypt, Namibia and Angola are above the average. Mozambique and Algeria grew at a steady 13%. (Figure 10) Figure 10 : Growth Index in research (Category 1 - Joint Call countries),

29 29 Category 2: Compared to the category average of 11%, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Mauritius, Ghana and Congo all exhibited positive growth. (Figure 11) The rest had a growth below the average. Rwanda had the largest growth followed by Ethiopia and Ghana. Rwanda is an exceptional case considering the increased direct STI investment and priority focus. It is currently an innovation hub as a result of government STI agenda focus. The government s commitment and increased investment in STI has helped double the industry s contribution to the economy. Figure 11 : Research Growth Index Category 2 countries ( ). (Average is equal to 0) ZIMBABWE UGANDA -0,2% 0,1% -2,3% TUNISIA SUDAN 2,7% ETHIOPIA 4,9% -1,7% SENEGAL RWANDA 9,8% -3,8% NIGERIA MAURITIUS 2,8% -1,7% MALAWI -7,2% MADAGASCAR -5,3% LESOTHO GHANA 5,6% CONGO 2,7% -2,4% CAMEROON -3,4% BOTSWANA -10,0% -8,0% -6,0% -4,0% -2,0% 0,0% 2,0% 4,0% 6,0% 8,0% 10.0% 12,0%

30 Publication by Type of Affiliation Category 1: One hundred and sixty (160) unique affiliation types were observed and 136 (85 %) of these came from Institutions of Higher Learning, followed by 43 (26.8) government agencies and 1 hospital. (Table 5) Table 5 : Institution Affiliation Types Affiliation Type Category 1 Category 2 Institution of Higher Learning Hospital 1 9 Research Institute - 15 Government Agency 43 2 Private organisation 0 - International Organisations 0 - Category 2: Ninety-nine (99) unique affiliation types were observed and 73 (74 %) of these came from Institutions of Higher Learning, followed by 15 (15.5%) research institutions affiliated to the latter or government agency, 9 Hospitals (9.5%) and 2 (2.5%) government agencies. This although dominated by Institutions of higher learning, is a shift from the situation amongst the Category 1 countries due to a more significant involvement of research institutes. Like the findings among the Category 1 countries, what s clearly missing in the research collaboration is involvement of the private sector. This seems to be a general trend among African countries. 6.4 Rank According to Number, Per Million Population and Annual Growth Rate Category 1: Whilst South Africa, Egypt and Algeria lead in rank with the first two indicators, namely number and per million population output, their average annual growth is lower. In terms of growth, Angola ranks highest followed by Namibia then Egypt. (Table 6) Table 6 : Rank of Countries According to the three Bibliometric Indicators Rank Rank According to Number Rank According to Per Million Population 1 South Africa South Africa Angola 2 Egypt Egypt Namibia 3 Algeria Algeria Egypt 4 Namibia Mozambique 5 Algeria 6 Zambia Zambia Zambia Average Annual Growth Rate

31 31 Rank Rank According to Number Rank According to Per Million Population 7 Mozambique 8 Namibia Mozambique South Africa 9 Angola Angola Average Annual Growth Rate Category 2: Whilst it is expected that Tunisia and Nigeria would dominate the rankings, it is interesting to note that countries like Ghana, Botswana, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Senegal, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Malawi feature amongst the top ten (10) most prolific countries across all three indicators. (Table 7) In order perhaps to stimulate research output growth in Africa, it is recommended that the bilateral agreements with these countries be strategically activated based on this encouraging research trajectory. This strategy should take into considerations among others the relative strengths in particular fields of research amongst these countries. Furthermore, there is also the need to understand the role of the private sector is in research in these countries as well as the extent and the reasons why participate in research. Table 7 : Rank of Countries According to the three Bibliometric Indicators Rank Output Per Capita Output Number Average Annual Growth Rate 1 Tunisia Tunisia Rwanda 2 Botswana Nigeria Ghana 3 Ghana Ethiopia Ethiopia 4 Cameroon Ghana Congo 5 Senegal Uganda Sudan 6 Zimbabwe Cameroon Mauritius 7 Nigeria Sudan Uganda 8 Uganda Senegal Zimbabwe 9 Malawi Zimbabwe Senegal 10 Lesotho Malawi Malawi 11 Rwanda Botswana Tunisia 12 Sudan Congo Cameroon 13 Ethiopia Madagascar Botswana 14 Madagascar Rwanda Nigeria 15 Mauritius Lesotho Lesotho 16 Congo Mauritius Madagascar

32 Degree and Trend of Collaboration The degree of collaboration between authors is described as the number of single versus multi-authored articles published. The study applied a well-documented formula to calculate the proportion of co-authored publications in a single journal. 7 Category 1: The result shows that the degree of collaboration among the joint call countries between years 2008 and 2016 steadily increased from to (Figure 12) This indicates that collaboration generally between authors in these countries is increasingly becoming a common practice. Figure 12 : Trend of Degree of Collaboration (C) Category 2: It was found that the generally, the degree of collaboration increased from 0.89 (89%) in 2008 to 0.93 (93%) in The number and/or proportion of single authored papers, compared to the multi-authored papers has been on the decline indicating increased collaboration in research output by these countries. (Figure 13) Figure 13 : Trend of degree of Collaboration

33 Strength of Collaborative Linkages with South Africa Category 1: has the most significant collaboration with SA (1.28%) followed by, Namibia, Zambia, Egypt, Mozambique, Algeria and Angola. (Table 8) Table 8 : Strength of Collaboration Category 1 Rank Country Total Papers Produced Joint Call Author papers Total In collaboration with SA SA Ratio of Collaboration % % 3 Namibia % 4 Zambia % Egypt % 6 Mozambique % 7 Algeria % 9 Angola %

34 34 Category 2: Nigeria is ranked highest producing 2462 papers with South African authors, followed by Zimbabwe, Uganda, Ghana, Botswana, Cameroon, Malawi, Ethiopia, Congo DR, Sudan, Rwanda, Senegal, Tunisia, Madagascar, Lesotho, Mauritius in that order. Of concern however is the ratio of SA papers produced from the collaboration with each particular country. Collaboration with Nigeria contributed 1.74% to SA s total whilst the rest were less than 1%. (Table 9) Table 9 : Strength of Collaboration Category 2 Strength of Collaboration Rank Country Papers Produced by the country Number of Papers in Collaboration Papers by SA Ratio of Collaboration 1 Nigeria % 2 Zimbabwe % 3 Uganda % 4 Ghana % 5 Botswana % 6 Cameroon % 7 Malawi % 8 Ethiopia % Congo % 10 Sudan % 11 Rwanda % 12 Senegal % 13 Tunisia % 14 Madagascar % 15 Lesotho % 16 Mauritius % However, generally, the co-publication by both Category 1 and 2 countries with SA is generally very low ranging in percentage between % and % respectively.

35 Top 20 Most Prolific Institutions Category 1: South African (11) and Egyptian (8) institutions dominate the list. Algeria is the only other appearing on the list. (Table 10) A reason for South African publications dominating this list may be due to the fact that in South Africa, the funding system is subsidised by the government according to the number of publications produced by their members of staff and this may be a disincentive to collaboration and that this may not be the situation in the other countries. 8 Table 10 : Most Prolific Institutions category 1 INSTITUTION COUNTRY PUBLICATIONS University of Cape Town South Africa Cairo University Egypt University of Witwatersrand South Africa University of Pretoria South Africa University of Stellenbosch South Africa University of KwaZulu-Natal South Africa Ain Shams University Egypt National Research Centre Egypt Alexandria University Egypt 9039 Mansoura University Egypt 8437 University of Johannesburg South Africa 8428 North-West University South Africa 6638 Assiut University Egypt 5907 Zagazig University Egypt 5627 Universite des Sciences et de la Technologie Algeria 5394 Houari Boumediene University of the Free State South Africa 5192 Al-Azhar University Egypt 4949 University of the Western Cape South Africa 4757 University of South Africa South Africa 4550 Rhodes University South Africa 4361

36 36 Category 2: Tunisian and Nigerian institutions are very prolific. (Table 11) It is very interesting however to see institutions from Uganda, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Ghana, Botswana and Benin also amongst them. This is unlike amongst the Category 1 countries where institutions from only two (2) countries, SA and Egypt, dominated the list. The reason for domination of SA institutions amongst the Category 1 countries was cited as perhaps government funding system where publication output is subsidised. Amongst these countries however, government commitment is not very significant. However, there may be a lot of activities involving spontaneous research initiatives as well as inputs by other stakeholders local, international and private. It is recommended that the NRF explore the dynamics in this space in order to inform the strategy when activating the current bilateral agreements via joint calls. Table 11 : Most Prolific Institutions Category 2 AFFILIATION Country Number of Publications University of Sfax Tunisia 7977 University of Ibadan Nigeria 6244 Makerere University Uganda 5405 University of Tunis El Manar Tunisia 4619 Universite de Tunis El Manar, Faculte des Sciences de Tunis Tunisia 4517 Addis Ababa University Ethiopia 3946 Universite de Yaounde I Cameroon 3895 University of Monastir Tunisia 3846 University of Nigeria Nigeria 3819 University of Ghana Ghana 3797 Ecole Nationale d Ingenieurs de Sfax Tunisia 3785 University of Carthage Tunisia 3614 Obafemi Awolowo University Nigeria 3376 University of Lagos Nigeria 2798 Ahmadu Bello University Nigeria 2566 University of Botswana Botswana 2418 Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Ghana 2346 University of Ilorin Nigeria 2221 University of Benin Benin 2215 University of Tunis Tunisia 2149

37 Most Productive Areas/Fields Of Collaboration Category 1: Medicine dominates productivity followed by Engineering, Agricultural Sciences, Computer Sciences, physics and astronomy etc. (Figure 14) Figure 14 : Most Productive Fields category 1 What is interesting is that the criteria and/or selection of fields/areas used when agreeing to collaborate amongst the countries with the bilateral calls is very broad and does not correspond to international conventions of research area identification in most global databases. (Table 2 above) The most prolific and widely used databases such as SCOPUS, Web of Science, Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators SM database to mention but a few utilise 26 standard fields in order to classify the research areas as reflected in figure 14 above. The higher level and/or combined and or completely new descriptions currently utilised during the bilateral call process may present a challenge in monitoring, measuring, managing and making decisions on research outputs by the NRF and their partners. It may also present challenges in aligning research to international standards. It is consequently strongly recommended that in drafting the agreements, the nomenclature used should be aligned with these international best practices.

38 38 Category 2: Medicine dominates productivity however, the general pattern is not very different to that of the Category 1. (Figure 15) Figure 15 : Most Productive Fields Category Ranking in Terms of Number of Publications - Category 1 and 2 Both Categories were ranked from highest to lowest in each research field. A discernible pattern found was that the data table(s) can be separated into four quadrants as follows: 1. Upper Left Quadrant - The strong and relatively strong countries in particular fields 2. Lower Left Quadrant - Weak areas amongst otherwise strong countries 3. Upper Right Quadrant Relatively mildly strong areas amongst lower rank countries 4. Lower Right Quadrant - Weak areas in ALL countries

39 39.Table 19 : Ranking of Output Number In Areas/Fields Of Collaboration Category 1 RANK Areas of Research Total (N) Medicine SA (38066) Egypt (31598) (8226) (5180) Algeria (2684) Zambia (2102) Mozam (1239) Namibia (445) Angola (307) Engineering Egypt (22777) SA (15174 Algeria (13825) (691) (416) Zambia (121) Namibia (114) Angola (49) Mozamb (46) Agricultural and Biological Sciences SA (23995) Egypt (11128) (6031) Algeria (2843) (2395) Zambia (596) Namibia (525 Mozamb (501) Angola (129) Computer Science Egypt (11508) SA (10109) Algeria (9062) (465) (269) Namibia (223) Zambia (61) Mozamb (38) Angola (12) Physics and Astronomy Egypt (14409) SA (13549) Algeria (8396) (248) Namibia (149) (126) Zambia (28) Mozamb (23) Angola (13) Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology Egypt (15293) SA (13812) (2464) Algeria (2059) (1123) Zambia (334) Mozamb (311) Namibia (188) Angola (78) Chemistry Egypt (17730) SA (9811) Algeria (4561) (336) (205) Namibia (48) Mozamb (46) Zambia (30) Angola (18) Materials Science Egypt (14577) SA (8626) Algeria (7176) (191) (129) Zambia (44) Namibia (36) Mozamb (17) Angola (12) Social Sciences SA (25156) Egypt (3072) (2935) (1300) Algeria (1064) Zambia (453) Mozamb (304) Namibia (274) Angola (65) Environmental Science SA (11245) Egypt (7485) Algeria (2649) (2462) (1086) Namibia (310) Zambia (290) Mozamb (222) Angola (50) Mathematics Egypt (7307) SA (7198) Algeria (5808) (197) (102) Namibia (37) Mozamb (26) Zambia (25) Angola (7) Earth and Planetary Sciences SA (11039) Egypt (4858) Algeria (1677) (773) (433) Namibia (311) Mozamb (156) Angola (117) Zambia (97) 19461

40 40 Immunology and Microbiology SA (7023) Egypt (4638) (2231) Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics Egypt (9180) Chemical Engineering Egypt (6095) SA (4056) Algeria (1169) SA (4214) Algeria (2369) Arts and Humanities SA (11938) Egypt (1009) (602) Energy Egypt (3722) SA (3277) Algeria (3001) Business, Management and Accounting SA (5193) Egypt (1352) (446) Economics, Econometrics and Finance Veterinary Egypt (2287) SA (5326) (642) Egypt (593) SA (2020) (537) Psychology SA (4044) (361) Egypt (325) Multidisciplinary Egypt (2842) SA (1105) Ageria (519) Nursing SA (1982) Egypt (1283) (361) Decision Sciences SA (1299) Egypt (815) Algeria (602) Neuroscience SA (1561) Egypt (1440) (179) Health Professions SA (1606) Egypt (683) (146) Dentistry Egypt (909) SA (323) (59) (1244) Algeria (738) (513) (371) (117) (103) Algeria (336) (237) (294) (115) Algeria (384) (249) (266) Algeria (159) (300) Algeria (254) (166) Zambia (99) (264) (97) (179) Algeria (105) (82) (32) Algeria (139) (101) Algeria (108) (68) (49) Algeria (14) Zambia (571) Mozamb (334) Namibia (91) Angola (79) Mozambique (87) Zambia (67) Namibia (52) Angola (24) Zambia (21) Namibia (18) Angola (17) Mozamb (14) Zambia (90) Namibia (67) Mozamb (63) Angola (8) Zambia (57) Mozamb (48) Angola (43) Namibia (18) Namiba (57) Zambia (46) Mozambique (32) Angola (6) 7765 Zambia (70) Namibia (45) Mozamb (39) Angola (10) 7150 Zambia (148) Mozam (75) Namibia (47) Angola (7) 5675 Algeria (56) Mozamb (32) Namibia (30) Angola (9) 5122 Namibia (27) Zambia (24 Mozamb (12) Angola (7) 4897 Zambia (90) Mozamb (35) Namibia (15) Angola (5) 4055 Namibia (24) Mozamb (10) Zambia (6) Angola (1) 2873 Zambia (33) Mozamb (9) Namibia (5) Angola (0) 3467 Zambia (29) Mozamb (18) Namibia (17) Angola (4) 2679 Mozamb (3) Zambia (1) Angola (0) Namibia (0) 1358

41 41 Undefined SA (5) Egypt (3) Algeria (1) Angola (0) Namibia (0) Zambia (0) Mozamb (0) (0) (0) 9 Table 40 : Ranking of Output Number In Areas/Fields Of Collaboration Category 2 Population RANK Medicine Nigeria Tunisia Uganda 5908 Ethiopia 4752 Ghana 4099 Cameroon 3259 Malawi 2670 Senegal 2403 Sudan 1974 Congo 1922 Engineering Tunisia Nigeria 5177 Ghana 775 Sudan 711 Cameroon 633 Ethiopia 608 Uganda 307 Senegal 303 Bots 298 Zim 190 Computer Science Tunisia Nigeria 2596 Sudan 477 Ghana 433 Ethiopia 407 Senegal 312 Cameroon 304 Uganda 296 Bots 244 Zim 109 Agricultural and Biological Sciences Nigeria 9582 Tunisia 5798 Ethiopia 3391 Uganda 2055 Ghana 2054 Cameroon 1980 Zim 1178 Sudan 1139 Senegal 1067 Madag 1045 Mathematics Tunisia 5622 Nigeria 1546 Cameroon 645 Senegal 345 Bots 226 Ethiopia 172 Ghana 156 Sudan 131 Uganda 125 Zim 113 Materials Science Tunisia 5565 Nigeria 1999 Cameroon 369 Ghana 236 Sudan 232 Ethiopia 221 Senegal 196 Bots 102 Uganda 58 Zim 47 Physics and Astronomy Tunisia 5438 Nigeria 1776 Cameroon 715 Ethiopia 320 Sudan 301 Senegal 296 Ghana 223 Bots 120 Madag 75 Uganda 66 Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology Tunisia 5134 Chemistry Tunisia 4140 Nigeria 4795 Nigeria 2047 Ethiopia 1313 Cameroon 644 Cameroon 1206 Uganda 1171 Ghana 979 Sudan 655 Senegal 537 Malawi 467 Congo 398 Congo 644 Ethiopia 412 Sudan 378 Senegal 286 Ghana 276 Bots 194 Madag 97 Environmental Science Nigeria 4164 Tunisia 3148 Ghana 1501 Ethiopia 1461 Uganda 780 Cameroon 729 Zim 589 Senegal 403 Bots 400 Sudan 319 Chemical Engineering Tunisia 2376 Nigeria 1428 Cameroon 194 Ghana 154 Ethiopia 147 Sudan 135 Senegal 78 Bots 54 Uganda 47 Zim 35 Immunology and Microbiology Nigeria 2666 Tunisia 2078 Uganda 1324 Ethiopia 939 Cameroon 796 Ghana 769 Senegal 691 Sudan 490 Zim 383 Congo 381 Energy Nigeria 2168 Tunisia 1632 Ghana 289 Ethiopia 167 Cameroon 166 Sudan 123 Uganda 107 Bots 59 Senegal 52 Zim 52 Social Sciences Nigeria 6163 Tunisia 1603 Ethiopia 1397 Uganda 1345 Zim 971 Bots 966 Cameroon 777 Malawi 528 Senegal 428 Sudan 378

42 42 Business, Management and Accounting Earth and Planetary Sciences Tunisia 1513 Nigeria 2666 Nigeria 1355 Tunisia 1492 Ghana 657 Uganda 197 Ethiopia 184 Bots 174 Zim 128 Cameroon 108 Ethiopia 782 Ghana 496 Cameroon 476 Senegal 322 Bots 250 Zim 235 Sudan 219 Sudan 64 Malawi 59 Uganda 207 Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics Nigeria 3899 Decision Sciences Tunisia 1083 Tunisia 1315 Cameroon 742 Ethiopia 631 Nigeria 361 Ghana 72 Ethiopia 63 Bots 50 Cameroon 46 Ghana 514 Sudan 371 Uganda 299 Congo 166 Zim 140 Senegal 133 Senegal 34 Uganda 28 Zim 16 Sudan 14 Economics, Econometrics and Finance Nigeria 1759 Health Professions Tunisia 486 Tunisia 1053 Ghana 603 Ethiopia 303 Cameroon 219 Uganda 204 Zim 196 Bots 131 Malawi 98 Nigeria 359 Ghana 95 Uganda 66 Sudan 50 Ethiopia 45 Bots 33 Cameroon 33 Malawi 30 Senegal 98 Zim 27 Neuroscience Tunisia 397 Nigeria 359 Ethiopia 84 Uganda 78 Cameroon 77 Ghana 65 Senegal 65 Congo 52 Zim 26 Malawi 24 Arts and Humanities Nigeria 2245 Ghana 411 Tunisia 396 Zim 341 Uganda 222 Ethiopia 210 Bots 191 Cameroon 182 Malawi 87 Senegal 86 Veterinary Nigeria 1107 Tunisia 274 Sudan 251 Uganda 194 Zim 123 Cameroon 100 Ghana 92 Senegal 84 Congo 79 Bots 61 Nursing Nigeria 1191 Ghana 302 Tunisia 246 Uganda 233 Ethiopia 221 Malawi 154 Sudan 136 Cameroon 104 Senegal 96 Bots 77 Multidisciplinary Nigeria 1125 Tunisia 244 Ethiopia 186 Sudan 151 Ghana 132 Cameroon 107 Uganda 79 Congo 46 Senegal 42 Madag 37 Psychology Nigeria 419 Uganda 292 Tunisia 161 Ghana 140 Zim 114 Ethiopia 97 Bots 89 Cameroon 73 Rwanda 66 Congo 38 Dentistry Nigeria 275 Tunisia 99 Sudan 57 Senegal 52 Uganda 32 Ghana 19 Ethiopia 16 Madag 8 Zim 6 Malawi 5 Undefined Tunisia 1 Cameroon 0 Ghana 0 Lesotho 0 Madag 0 Malawi 0 Maurit 0 Nigeria 0 Rwanda 0 Senegal 0

43 Ranking in Terms of Per Million Population of Publications Produced - Category 1 and 2 Category 1: A literal ranking based on number of publications indicates only SA and Egypt dominating (Table 14), this analysis/model of ranking per output per million of population, which takes into account the size of the population, produces a more accurate productivity of a country. Herein, the analysis observed countries such as Algeria were potentially leaders in important fields such as Computer Science and Astronomy. It also identifies that smaller countries like Namibia are producing proportionately high number of publications in relation to their population and by extension their size of the scientific community. On the other hand, the analysis/model is able to bring out a more accurate presentation of the general poor performance of countries like Angola and Mozambique. Category 2: This study found that apart from Nigeria and Tunisia, there was significant research output in countries like Botswana and Senegal, Cameroon. A more in-depth situational analysis is recommended to inform future bilateral/multilateral engagements with other African countries. (Table 15)

44 44 Table 14 : Ranking Output per million in Various Fields Category 1 Population (Million) Rank Algeria 69.2 Mozamb 50.2 Angola 16.1 Medicine SA Egypt Namibia Zambia Engineering Algeria SA Egypt Namibia Zambia 8.3 Angola 2.6 Mozam 1.9 Agricultural and Biological Sciences SA 496 Namibia Egypt Algeria Zambia 40.7 Mozam 20.3 Angola 6.8 Computer Science Algeria SA 209 Egypt Namibia Zambia 4.2 Mozam 1.5 Angola 0.6 Physics and Astronomy SA Algeria Egypt Namibia Zambia 1.9 Mozam 0.9 Angola 0.7 Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology SA Egypt 176 Namibia Algeria 53 Zambia Mozam 12.6 Angola 4.1 Chemistry Egypt 204 SA Algeria Namibia Zambia 2 Mozam 1.9 Angola 0.9 Materials Science Algeria SA Egypt Namibia Zambia Mozam 0.7 Angola 0.6 Social Sciences SA 520 Namibia Egypt 35.4 Zambia 30.9 Algeria Mozam 12.3 Angola 3.4 Environmental Science SA Namibia 141 Egypt 86.1 Algeria Zambia 19.8 Mozam 9 Angola 2.6 Mathematics Algeria SA Egypt 84.1 Namibia Zambia 1.7 Mozam 1.1 Angola 0.4 Earth and Planetary Sciences SA Namibia Egypt 55.9 Algeria Zambia 6.6 Mozam 6.3 Angola 6.1 Immunology and Microbiology SA Egypt Namibia 41.4 Zambia Algeria 19 Mozam 13.5 Angola 4.1 Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics Egypt Chemical Engineering SA 87.1 Egypt 70.1 SA 83.8 Algeria 30.1 Algeria 61 Namibia 23.7 Namibia Zambia 4.6 Mozam 3.5 Angola 1.3 Zambia 1.4 Angola 0.9 Mozam 0.6

45 45 Population (Million) Rank Mozam 2.6 Angola 0.4 Arts and Humanities SA Namibia Egypt 11.6 Algeria 8.7 Zambia 6.1 Energy Algeria 77.3 SA 76.9 Egypt 52.4 Namibia Zambia 3.9 Angola Mozam 1.9 Business, Management and Accounting SA Namibia 25.9 Egypt 15.6 Algeria Zambia 3.1 Mozam 1.3 Angola 0.3 Economics, Econometrics and Finance SA Namibia 20.5 Veterinary SA 41.8 Egypt Namibia 21.4 Egypt Zambia 10.1 Zambia 4.8 Algeria 6.5 Algeria 4.1 Mozam 1.6 Angola Mozam 3 Angola 0.4 Psychology SA 83.6 Namibia Zambia 6.8 Egypt Algeria 1.4 Mozam 1.3 Angola 0.5 Multidisciplinary Egypt 32.7 SA 22.8 Algeria 13.4 Namibia Zambia 1.6 Mozam 0.5 Angola 0.4 Nursing SA 41 Egypt Namibia 6.8 Zambia Algeria 2.7 Mozam 1.4 Angola 0.3 Decision Sciences SA 26.9 Algeria 15.5 Namibia 10.9 Egypt Zambia 0.4 Mozam 0.4 Angola 0.1 Neuroscience SA 32.3 Egypt Algeria 3.6 Namibia 2.3 Zambia Mozam 0.4 Angola 0 Health Professions SA 33.2 Egypt 7.9 Namibia Algeria 2.8 Zambia Mozam 0.7 Angola 0.2 Dentistry Egypt 10.5 SA Algeria 0.4 Zambia 0.1 Mozam 0.1 Angola 0 Namibia 0 Undefined SA 0.1 Angola 0 Algeria 0 Namibia 0 Zambia 0 Mozam Egypt 0

46 46 Table 15 : Ranking Output per million in Various Fields Category 2 Population Subject Nigeria 87 Rwanda 85 Medicine Tunisia 1057 Botswana 427 Senegal 149 Malawi 145 Ghana 142 Uganda 141 Cameroon 133 Zimbabwe 96 Engineering Tunisia 994 Botswana 129 Ghana 27 Nigeria 26 Cameroon 25 Senegal 18 Sudan 16 Zimbabwe 11 Lesotho 9 Rwanda 7 Computer Science Tunisia 989 Botswana 106 Senegal 19 Ghana 15 Nigeria 13 Cameroon 12 Sudan 11 Uganda 7 Lesotho 6 Zimbabwe 6 Agricultural and Biological Sciences Tunisia 504 Botswana 258 Mathematics Tunisia 488 Botswana 98 Cameroon 80 Cameroon 26 Zimbabwe 72 Ghana 71 Senegal 66 Nigeria 49 Uganda 49 Madagascar 40 Senegal 21 Nigeria 8 Zimbabwe 6 Malawi 35 Lesotho 6 Ghana 5 Mauritius 3 Sudan 3 Materials Science Tunisia 483 Botswana 44 Cameroon 15 Senegal 12 Nigeria 10 Ghana 8 Mauritius 5 Sudan 5 Lesotho 4 Zimbabwe 2 Physics and Astronomy Tunisia 472 Botswana 52 Cameroon 29 Senegal 18 Lesotho 9 Nigeria 9 Ghana 7 Sudan 7 Mauritius 5 Ethiopia 3 Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology Tunisia 446 Botswana 119 Chemistry Tunisia 360 Botswana 84 Cameroon 49 Cameroon 26 Ghana 34 Senegal 33 Uganda 28 Malawi 25 Nigeria 24 Zimbabwe 24 Rwanda 17 Senegal 17 Nigeria 10 Ghana 9 Sudan 8 Congo 7 Mauritius 6 Lesotho 5 Environmental Science Tunisia 273 Botswana 173 Ghana 52 Zimbabwe 36 Cameroon 29 Senegal 25 Nigeria 21 Uganda 18 Malawi 14 Ethiopia 14

47 47 Chemical Engineering Tunisia 206 Botswana 23 Cameroon 7 Nigeria 7 Ghana 5 Senegal 4 Sudan 3 Lesotho 3 Mauritius 2 Zimbabwe 2 Immunology and Microbiology Tunisia 180 Botswana 81 Senegal 42 Cameroon 32 Uganda 31 Ghana 26 Zimbabwe 23 Rwanda 15 Malawi 14 Nigeria 13 Energy Tunisia 141 Botswana 25 Nigeria 11 Ghana 10 Cameroon 6 Lesotho 5 Senegal 3 Zimbabwe 3 Sudan 2 Uganda 2 Social Sciences Botswana 420 Tunisia 139 Zimbabwe 59 Lesotho 50 Uganda 32 Nigeria 32 Cameroon 31 Malawi 28 Senegal 26 Rwanda 23 Business, Management and Accounting Earth and Planetary Sciences Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics Decision Sciences Tunisia 131 Botswana 75 Tunisia 129 Botswana 108 Tunisia 114 Botswana 38 Tunisia 94 Botswana 21 Ghana 22 Zimbabwe 7 Senegal 20 Cameroon 19 Cameroon 30 Nigeria 7 Uganda 4 Cameroon 4 Lesotho 4 Malawi 3 Senegal 2 Ghana 17 Zimbabwe 14 Nigeria 13 Mauritius 7 Ethiopia 7 Lesotho 6 Nigeria 20 Ghana 17 Sudan 8 Zimbabwe 8 Senegal 8 Uganda 7 Ethiopia 6 Ghana 2 Senegal 2 Nigeria 1 Cameroon 1 Zimbabwe 0 Mauritius 0 Uganda 0 Rwanda 0 Economics, Econometrics and Finance Health Professions Tunisia 91 Botswana 56 Tunisia 42 Botswana 14 Ghana 21 Zimbabwe 12 Ghana 3 Nigeria 1 Zimbabwe 1 Nigeria 9 Cameroon 8 Senegal 6 Malawi 5 Lesotho 5 Uganda 4 Malawi 1 Uganda 1 Senegal 1 Cameroon 1 Sudan 1

48 48 Neuroscience Tunisia 34 Botswana 7 Senegal 4 Cameroon 3 Ghana 2 Mauritius 2 Nigeria 1 Uganda 1 Zimbabwe 1 Rwanda 1 Arts and Humanities Botswana 83 Tunisia 34 Zimbabwe 20 Ghana 14 Lesotho 13 Nigeria 11 Cameroon 7 Senegal 5 Uganda 5 Malawi 4 Veterinary Botswana 26 Tunisia 23 Zimbabwe 7 Sudan 5 Nigeria 5 Senegal 5 Uganda 4 Cameroon 4 Ghana 3 Lesotho 2 Nursing Botswana 33 Tunisia 21 Ghana 10 Malawi 8 Nigeria 6 Senegal 5 Uganda 5 Zimbabwe 4 Cameroon 4 Lesotho 4 Multidisciplinary Tunisia 21 Botswana 12 Nigeria 5 Ghana 4 Cameroon 4 Sudan 3 Senegal 2 Malawi 1 Uganda 1 Ethiopia 1 Psychology Botswana 38 Tunisia 14 Uganda 7 Zimbabwe 6 Rwanda 5 Ghana 4 Cameroon 2 Lesotho 2 Nigeria 2 Senegal 2 Dentistry Tunisia 8 Senegal 3 Nigeria 1 Sudan 1 Botswana 1 Uganda 0 Ghana 0 Zimbabwe 0 Madagascar 0 Malawi 0 Undefined Tunisia 0 Botswana 0 Cameroon 0 Congo 0 Ghana 0 Lesotho 0 Madagascar 0 Malawi 0 Mauritius 0 Nigeria 0

49 Other Intra-Africa (Apart from SA) and Intercontinental Africa Collaborations Category 1: Although the fulcrum of the study, Bilateral agreements and Joint Call direct investment support is South Africa, research was extended to an investigation of the patterns of research collaborations without South Africa as well as to find out whether there were other fulcra outside that under the Joint Call. Consequently, patterns of intra-africa as well as intercontinental research activities were reviewed. Table 16 presents an overview of Category 1 countries each as fulcrum of the research and identifies the top 5 intra-africa collaborations as well as the top 5 intercontinental collaborations. Within Africa, generally, South Africa collaborates the most with Angola, Mozambique, Egypt, Zambia,Namibia and, Algeria has more significant research interactions with Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt. These patterns suggest regional (African region), language (Arabic and/or Swahili) and political patterns. Outside the continent collaborations whilst dominated by the USA, amongst most countries, it does not appear amongst the top 5 partners of Algeria. A plausible explanation could be the political relations between the two countries. This notion is augmented by the fact that Algeria has the highest collaborations with France as they are a Francophone country. Followed by Egypt possibly for reasons of language already alluded to above. Another interesting pattern is that Egypt interacts the most with Saudi Arabia as well as the USA followed by Germany. This analysis, albeit not in-depth, provides an opportunity to the DST/NRF to have an understanding of the patterns of research intra- and intercontinental and is very useful information when it comes to future strategies and engagement with partners for collaboration especially bilateral and multilateral. Category 2: Within Africa, generally, South Africa collaborates the most with ten (10) out of the 16 countries with bilateral agreements (Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Botswana, Cameroon, Malawi, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Lesotho and Mauritius). (Table 17) Interestingly again, like the findings for amongst Category 1 countries, a language pattern also exists amongst the category 2 countries. Uganda and Rwanda collaborate most with (Swahili speaking), DR Congo interacts with Congo (Francophone), Senegal with Burkina Faso and Tunisia with Morocco (Arabic). Apart from language, this pattern is possibly also significantly influenced by regional relationships and/or bilateral and multilateral relationships. Intercontinentally, collaborations amongst these countries remain dominated by the USA (Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Ghana, Botswana, Malawi, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Lesotho). However, the Francophone pattern emerges again with Cameroon, Senegal, Tunisia and Madagascar collaborating the highest with France. DR Congo however has most activity with Belgium whilst Mauritius has best relations with the United Kingdom.

50 50 Table 16 : Other Intra-Africa and Outside Africa Collaborations of Category 1 Countries Algeria (1558) Angola (281) Morocco (623) South Africa (26) Mozambique (2112) Egypt (113171) Zambia (3261) Namibia (1843) (9438) (18246) South Africa (382) South Africa (541) South Africa (603) South Africa (724) (880) South Africa (1715) Tunisia (586) Namibia (8) (169) Tunisia (426) (285) (64) South Africa (819) Uganda (1034) Egypt (287) Cameroon (7) (139) Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (405) Uganda (246) Botswana (63) Uganda (576) (883) South Africa (200) Congo (6) Uganda (102) Algeria (287) (240) (46) Nigeria (266) Nigeria (462) Senegal (43) Mozambique (6) Nigeria (92) Morocco (281) Malawi (214) Malawi (44) Ghana (250) Ethiopia (458) France (576) Portugal (102) Saudi Arabia (158) United States (574) United States (44) Spain (363) Saudi Arabia (18216) United States (10663) United States (1473) United Kingdom (752) Germany (332) United States (432) United States (2574) United States (5888) United Kingdom (2130) United Kingdom (3622) Spain (128) Brazil (34) United Kingdom (312) Germany (5315) Switzerland (213) United Kingdom (318) Germany (658) Germany (1377) Italy (126) United Kingdom (28) Portugal (244) United Kingdom (112) France (27) Brazil (213) Japan (3708) United Kingdom (4763) Japan (182) Australia (183) Switzerland (631) Netherlands (1143) Netherlands (165) France (159) Netherlands (622) Canada (1056)

51 51 Table 17 : Other Intra-Africa and Outside Africa Collaboration other than SA Category 2 Nigeria (48795) Zimbabwe (4362) Uganda (9852) Ghana (10611) Mauritius (1745) Botswana (3746) Cameroon (8675) Lesotho (358) Malawi (3959) Ethiopia (11844) DR Congo (2810) South Africa (2481) South Africa (1304) (1032) South Africa (785) South Africa (694) South Africa (694) Sudan (5334) Rwanda (1879) Senegal (5178) Tunisia (51470) Madagascar (2312) South Africa (120) South Africa (115) South Africa (646) South Africa (141) South Africa (598) Congo (470) Ghana (242) (506) South Africa (994) Nigeria (506) Nigeria (134) Nigeria (286) (457) (328) South Africa (261) (461) Uganda (238) (416) (578) (112) (258) Zambia (214) Uganda (235) Egypt (262) Burkina (218) Faso (338) Morocco (662) Zimbabwe Senegal (95) (15) (19) Cameroon (199) Uganda Malawi (191) (360) Nigeria (357) South Africa (254) South Africa (215) South Africa (207) Madagascar (15) Algeria (586) (70) Malawi (16) (250) Zimbabwe (108) Senegal (197) Nigeria (189) (194) (194) Cameroon (326) (149) Uganda (208) Cameroon (197) Egypt (429) Egypt (14) Swaziland (11) Mozambique (10) Zambia (184) Zambia (246) Burkina Faso (218) Ethiopia (85) Uganda (84) Mali (192) (114) South Africa (185) Burkina Faso (180) Cameroon (67) (64) Zimbabwe (190) (188) Uganda (183) United States (3399) United States (871) United States (3603) Namibia Ethiopia (76) Zambia (94) Benin (179) Cameroon (83) (14) United States (2156) United States (874) France (2073) United States (1489) United States (1918) Belgium (845) Saudi Arabia (695) United States (738) United Kingdom (226) France (1983) France (14328) United France (934) States (88)

52 52 Nigeria (48795) United Kingdom (2641) Malaysia (1478) China (1148) India (1015) Zimbabwe (4362) United Kingdom (775) Uganda (9852) Ghana (10611) Botswana (3746) Cameroon (8675) Malawi (3959) Mauritius (1745) France (243) Netherlands (239) Switzerland (150) United Kingdom (2136) Ethiopia (11844) DR Congo (2810) Sudan (5334) Rwanda (1879) Senegal (5178) Tunisia (51470) Madagascar (2312) Lesotho (358) United States (181) Canada (701) Sweden (637) Netherlands (620) United Kingdom (1704) United Kingdom (317) Germany (649) Canada (143) Netherlands (572) United States (1098) United Kingdom (1365) United Kingdom (1146) United States (832) Malaysia (508) United Kingdom (245) United States (782) Saudi Arabia (2118) United States (683) United Kingdom (24) Australia (129) Germany (780) Netherlands (231) India (894) France (603) United Kingdom (448) India (133) Belgium (215) United Kingdom (396) Spain (1685) United Kingdom (358) France Switzerland (19) Australia (13) United Kingdom (662) Switzerland (210) (124) Germany (693) United Kingdom (371) United States (446) Netherlands (185) Belgium (261) Italy (1509) Germany (276) China (440) India (109) Belgium (516) Australia (201) Netherlands (601) Switzerland (307) China (417) Germany (123) Switzerland (223) United States (1364) Switzerland (131) Australia (86) France (13)

53 Joint Call Authors Contribution to Research Output Amongst Countries with Active Joint Calls 7.1 Period Preceding Joint Calls versus Joint Call period A comparative analysis was conducted between the current 8-year period under review versus a similar period immediately preceding the commencement of the first Joint Call projects support. (Figure 16) Figure 16 : Impact: Period (immediately preceding) versus (Joint Call Support period) The findings revealed a generally higher productivity during the period post-initiation of the joint call project support. The total number of publication output increased from 972 to 5292 indicating the possible impact of the joint call in increasing output.

54 Joint Call Output The publications produced by joint call authors were identified. The highest number (379) of was by South African researchers followed by (121), Namibia (83), Algeria (47), Angola (37), Egypt (33), Mozambique (19) and lastly Zambia (16). (Table 18) Table 18 : Percentage Contribution Country Total Publications ( ) Publications Direct Support Output (N) South Africa Angola Algeria Namibia Zambia Mozambique Egypt TOTAL % This output, compared to the rest of the activity ongoing amongst these countries, appears minimal. (Figure 17) However, the aim of the joint calls is to stimulate research and mobility interactions between the different countries, an aim that has been achieved.

55 55 Figure 17 : All research irrespective of collaboration versus Joint Calls Absolute volume of published papers is one indicator of research activity and indirectly of research capacity. The results have found that the joint call authors contributed only 0.23% (758 papers) of the volume of published papers (328,573) by the researchers in countries with Joint Calls. From 21 bilateral agreements, SA had eight (8) agreements that resulted in funding to 229 pairs of researchers in joint projects valued at approximately R44m (from the SA DST/NRF and more from other partners). Amongst the Category 1 countries, in order of strength of collaboration, appears to be the highest, followed by, Namibia, Zambia, Egypt, Mozambique, Algeria and lastly Angola in that order. (Table 20) With the NRF Joint calls output, again had the highest number (121) followed by Namibia (83), Algeria (47), Angola (37), Egypt (33), (23), Mozambique (19) and Zambia with only 16.(Figure 18)

56 56 Figure 18 : Overall Collaboration pattern with SA versus Joint Call Authorship Pattern Important to note though is that there is a significant amount of research activity, collaborations, partnerships and outputs in terms of publications amongst these countries, outside the joint calls. It would be important to engage this space in order to better understand the research dynamics. 7.3 Leading Areas South Africa is Co-publishing with Joint Call Countries Areas in which SA is co-publishing with each of the Category 1 countries were studied. Generally, the leading category was medicine followed by agricultural sciences. What was interesting however is that the leading copublishing area with Algeria was Physics and astronomy (Table 19)

57 57 Table 19 : Top 10 Areas South Africa is Co-publishing with Each Category 1 Countries Rank Egypt Algeria Angola Mozambique Namibia Zambia Medicine (252) Physics and Astronomy (61) Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (83) Medicine (44) Medicine (14) Chemistry (74) Engineering (40) Agricultural and Biological Sciences (69) Chemistry (37) Physics and Astronomy (66) Materials Science (35) Agricultural and Biological Sciences (28) Medicine (852) Medicine (206) Environmental Science (10) Earth and Planetary Sciences (7) Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (6) Agricultural and Biological Sciences (480) Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (234) Immunology and Microbiology (196) Social Sciences (195) Agricultural and Biological Sciences (91) Agricultural and Biological Sciences (206) Medicine (446) Medicine (408) Earth and Planetary Sciences (174) Immunology and Microbiology (51) Medicine (129) Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (42) Social Sciences (42) Physics and Astronomy (116) Environmental Science (107) Agricultural and Biological Sciences (197) Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (118) Social Sciences (100) Immunology and Microbiology (76) Agricultural and Biological Sciences (105) Immunology and Microbiology (88) Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (67) Social Sciences (63)

58 58 Rank Egypt Algeria Angola Mozambique Namibia Zambia Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics (55) Engineering (38) Immunology and Microbiology (36) Materials Science (28) Computer Science (20) Chemical Engineering (18) Immunology and Microbiology (18) Mathematics (16) Social Sciences (2) Business, Management and Accounting (1) Economics, Econometrics and Finance (1) Immunology and Microbiology (1) Environmental Science (146) Engineering (77) Environmental Science (41) Earth and Planetary Sciences (24) Earth and Planetary Sciences (62) Veterinary (23) Materials Science (62) Engineering (10) Computer Science (73) Social Sciences (73) Engineering (63) Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (56) Environmental Science (72) Environmental Science (42) Earth and Planetary Sciences (47) Veterinary (22) Engineering (39) Psychology (18) Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics (33) Engineering (17) Environmental Science (26) Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (15) Mathematics (1) Chemistry (55) Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics (10) Immunology and Microbiology (26) Materials Science (23) Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics (17)

59 Impact of Joint call Funding (Discoveries, Human Capacity Development and Infrastructure/Funding) Globally, metrics evaluators draw on scientometric studies to shape technology and innovation policies, to determine funding priorities and to measure the wider impacts of research. In commissioning this study, it was envisioned that a qualitative measurement of aspects of science, technology and innovation, beyond publications, should be included. Doing this would link the financial input/investment by the DST/NRF to key indicators and/ or research components relating to human resources, financial resources and infrastructure. For purposes of this report on the Joint Research Programme, impact overall was defined as an effect on change or a benefit to society, economy, public policy or services, or quality of life, beyond academia and/or publications. As discussed above, 229 projects were funded between 2008 and 2016 inclusive. (Figure 19) Figure 19 : Projects Funded per Country For each of the category 1 countries, respective case study summaries based broadly on three impact indicators namely, discoveries, capacity development of researchers and students and research infrastructure and funding are presented per country. The analysis then provides a closer look based on outcome indicators. For ease of reference, a detailed definition of the impact indicators is provided in Section projects were funded at 44 unique SA research institutions (academic and otherwise). 219 South African principle investigators were supported through the joint calls.

60 Impact Indicator 1 : Capacity Development of researchers and students Data available from various NRF documents concerning the bilateral program(s) were reviewed. These were such as: S&T agreements and relevant information Call guidelines List of funded projects Financial data (expenditures vs original budgeted) Progress Reports Final Reports Key outcome indicators were identified and results obtained therefrom. (Table 20) Table 20 : Joint Call Outcome Indicator Details Number of Projects funded 229 Number of SA Institutions supported (Academic and others) 44 Number of SA Principle Investigators supported (others had more than 1 project 219 Gender 32% female 68% male Grantees Institutions 44 South African 44 Africa Other Researchers Involved in the Projects >1100 Postgraduate Students and Postdocs Trained at South African Institutions 340 Student and Faculty Exchange Program 394 Collaborations with institutions other than parent institutions to the grantees 272 Other International Institutions 56 *Note: Data based on 155 of 229 reports received.

61 61 Proportions of Projects Supported Overall, Category 1 countries agreed to support Joint Call reports in 13 specific areas. The highest proportion of projects supported were in Biosciences and Biotechnology (26.1%) followed by Agriculture (14.3%), Environment and Climate Change (8.7%), Material Science and Nanotechnology (8.7% and Energy (7%). Others were Space sciences and remote sensing (5.7%), and health (5.2%). The rest of the fields formed less than 5% of those supported during the joint call. (Table 21 and Figure 20) Table 21: Proportion of Projects Supported Area Percentage Biosciences & Biotech 26.1% Agriculture 14.3% Environment & Climate Change 8.7% Material Science and Nanotech 8.7% Energy 7.0% Space Sciences & Remote Sensing 5.7% Health 5.2% Geosciences & Mineral Resources 3.9% IKS 3.5% ICT 3.0% Social Sciences & Humanities 3.0% Agricultural multidisciplinary 1.7% Biosciences and Biotech/Material Science and Nanotech 1.7% Health multidisciplinary 1.7% Material Science and Nanotech multidisciplinary 1.7% Biosciences & Biotech/IKS 1.3% Biosciences & Biotech/Agriculture 0.9% Laser Technology 0.4% Mathematical Sciences 0.4% Oceanography 0.4% Palaeontology 0.4%

62 62 Figure 20 : Proportion of Projects Supported

63 63 Most prolific Institutions Supported The top 10 most prolifically supported South African institutions included University of Cape Town ranked highest with 31 projects followed by University of Pretoria (30), CSIR (18), Stellenbosch University (16), University of the Witwatersrand (15), Agricultural Research Council (12), University of KwaZulu-Natal (12) and Rhodes University, University of Johannesburg and Western Cape (each with 11) (Table 22). Table 22 : Most Prolifically Funded Institutions In SA SA Research Institution(s) Frequency of Support SA Research Institution(s) Frequency of Support SA Research Institution(s) 1 UCT UFS 6 31 Bayworld 1 2 UP US 6 32 Council for Geoscience 1 3 CSIR DUT 4 33 CSIR-MSM 1 4 SU NMMU 4 34 CSIR-NRE 1 Frequency of Support Hermanus Magnetic 5 Wits UNISA 4 35 Observatory 1 6 ARC VUT 4 36 ICGEB 1 7 UKZN CPUT 3 37 Iziko SA Museum 1 8 RU HSRC 3 38 Medunsa (UL) 1 9 UJ MRC 3 39 NMISA 1 10 UWC UL 3 40 SAAO 1 11 UFH Univen 3 41 SAIAB 1 12 NWU 9 27 CUT 2 42 University of Zululand 1 13 ithemba Labs 6 28 Mintek 2 43 UV 1 14 SANSA 6 29 NZG 2 44 UZ 1 15 TUT 6 30 SAEON 1 Total A per country analysis per Impact and Output Indicator is presented in section 7.2.1

64 Impact Indicator 2 : Discoveries Discoveries were defined as significant new knowledge and understanding, contributions to discoveries with tangible impacts on society, any applications of research contributions to the development of enabling technologies, products and devices, uptake of research into policy and practice. The Joint Call projects resulted in discoveries in 9 of the 13 thematic areas. These included 5 discoveries in Agricultural Sciences, 3 in Biosciences and Biotechnology, 2 in Biosciences combined with Indigenous Knowledge Systems, 3 in Environmental and Climate Change, 1 in Geosciences & Mineral Resources, 5 in Health Sciences, 3 in Information and Communication Technology, 1 in Material Science and Nanotechnology and 1 in Palaeontology. (Table 23) Table 23 : Discoveries PRIORITY AREA Agricultural Sciences Biosciences DETAILS OF DISCOVERY New knowledge on preservation of indigenous species as well as breeding of stronger and better cows and goats in South Africa and. This information has improved the livelihood of both commercial and subsistence farmers For the first time documented the biodiversity of 8 villages in which was previously unknown. This has boosted ecosystem productivity in the area. New knowledge on genetic diversity in existing captive catfish populations and identifying wild populations with good levels of diversity to use for future selection by aquaculture ventures. Raised awareness about foodborne pathogens such as Campylobacter species in the poultry industry. Benefited the maize industry s objective of being internationally competitive by producing maize below maximum tolerable levels of fumonisin that are safe for human consumption. Enhanced collaboration with traditional health practitioners in search for bioactives, added novel information to ethnomedicine and ethnoveterinary research Contributed novel knowledge around the sustainability of small- and large scale fisheries through collection of scientific information that provides an understanding of the patterns of weather and climate change and factors driving them. It further encouraged the participation of women in a field previously male dominated field. Supported the successful application for and acquisition of R8million worth of funding from MRC SA for the establishment of malaria culturing and screening facility at Rhodes University.

65 65 PRIORITY AREA Biosciences/ Indigenous Knowledge Systems Environmental Sciences Geosciences Health DETAILS OF DISCOVERY (1) Enhanced knowledge of post-harvest contamination of drought-resistant vegetables for food security (2) Improved knowledge regarding the nutritional and identity of the varieties of Yam (3) Supported previously disadvantaged students (Black/Female). (4) Improved knowledge in medicinal plants Improved energy modelling knowledge, Assessment of the risk of Bio fuel depletion and resultant deforestation, Quantification of emission in the immediate environment of rural stoves and fires and the associated health risks, Introduction of application of alternative fireplace and stove designs resulting in better energy efficiencies. improved understanding of potential impact of rural domestic fires on climate change Significant impact on the community living around lake Victoria. Resulted in reduction of and more effective biological control of water hyacinth infestation and allowed the community to once again utilise the lake for economic activities. Increased the understanding of the cause of population of crash among animal species of national importance in. The project is of benefit to the water sector which is highly affected by the presence of HABs. This is due to the fact that, the project has developed, analytical methods for the determination of HABs and their toxic secondary metabolites and also strategies to remove/detoxify these biotoxins. Increased knowledge and documentation of the high altitude flora over much of the Angolan Escarpment - one of the most isolated, poorly studied and potentially endemic-rich highland areas in Africa. Maturity onset diabetes of the young is a genetic form of diabetes. To prevent misclassification of either type 1 or 2 genetic testing is essential. Previously this testing wasn t available in Africa and sending samples for testing outside Africa was very costly. This database benefits both clinicians and patients. The projects findings have addressed a wider community of researchers and policy makers. Notable is a global body working on malaria called Medicines for Malaria Ventures. Study has provided new supplementary data for rotavirus surveillance programme coordinated by Ministry of Health and WHO, and has provided new data on NOVs and Evs circulating in the communities. Data have an enormous impact on households/ community level mainly because we visited many villages, households etc and all of these people are very eager to learn more, how to apply the starters and especially health aspects. Once final data are established, these will also be communicated to the rural people but also industry for possible commercialization Documented novel information for Molecular epidemiology of Cryptosporidium in Rural settings in South Africa and : Transmission pathways and Molecular characterisation important information on a microscopic parasite that causes the diarrheal disease. This has been used to inform public health.

66 66 PRIORITY AREA ICT Nanomaterials Palaeontology DETAILS OF DISCOVERY Fostered digital inclusion through e-participation which forms part of wider transformation policy of SA government. Discovered new information on climate effects in the reproduction rate and survival of mosquitos hence control of the anopheles mosquitos which is key to malaria control and eradication. This research opened up new research direction in the use of sterile technology Important contribution in the understanding of small-scale fisheries policy to parliamentarians, industry, small-scale fisher representatives, practitioners and NGOs in SA; Provided access to information for poor marginalised fishermen (sales, markets, governance regulations) for better decision making ; Improved small scale farmers visibility on the continent as well as their better understanding of the regional fisheries landscape Indirect impact on the future of chemical treatment of fibres and materials as well as farmers knowledge on income improving tech/economic activities; Indirect impact on manufacture of semi-conductors using nanomaterials Masai and other local peoples heritage and awareness and sensitisation in Impact Indicator 3 : Research Infrastructure and funding Grant Terms and Conditions for the Joint Calls were restrictive. The funds were earmarked specifically to support travel costs, running expenses and workshops/conferences. Consequently, there Joint calls have not supported infrastructure improvement. Table 24 below provides a closer look at the funding structure across all category 1 countries.. Table 24 : Research Infrastructure and Funding Outcome Indicator Joint call Funds Additional Funds leveraged Details DST/NRF Budget Per Project: R Mainly used as seed funding and more funds were leveraged from other stakeholders Total invested: R44million R 10 million

67 Comprehensive Summative report of Category 1 & 2 and Recommendations 8.1 Assessment and Comparison of Capacity of Category 1 Countries (Bilateral s Activated by Joint Calls) Number of Publications Over the period 2008 to 2016 inclusive, Category 1 countries produced 328, 573 publications which contributed only 1.48% to the global output (for scale, it is equivalent to two-thirds of the volume of published output as the Netherlands which produced 472, 594) and 59% of the publications on the African continent. The Category 1 countries produced a more significant portion in Africa despite being only nine (9) out of 54 countries across the continent. The latter proportion immediately points to an uneven distribution of research and innovative capacity at both country levels. The trends for both Category 1 and 2, compared to the global output, is significantly small. These findings corroborate the conclusions of previous studies which identified that African research are still in an embryonic stage on the African continent Publication Growth Patterns Although the publication output numbers more than doubled over the period 2008 to 2016 this growth has slowed down significantly especially in the years 2015 (2.19%) and 2016 (7.9%) from the percentage observed at the beginning of the period in 2008 (20.47)%. Overall, the growth productivity amongst these countries is on the decline Per capita versus number of publication as an indicator It is well documented that the maximum potential output and/or productivity or growth potential of an economy has been linked to its population, especially the productive age-group. This study found that a more realistic picture of output/productivity was produced by using the per capita model compared to the total number model. It provided an example of a comparison between Namibia and Egypt which produced 1826 and 112,663 papers in number respectively. The relative populations are 2.2million in Namibia whilst Egypt has 86.9 million. On face value of the numbers of publications produced, one may be tempted to conclude that Egypt is more productive than Namibia. However, the populations of each of the two countries is significantly different, reflective of Namibia having a smaller scientific community. So once the data is reviewed on a per million population publication, compared to Egypt which produces 1296, Namibia produces publications per million population. This study therefore proposes that the per million population indicator is a more accurate depiction of productivity. This study has demonstrated that research output is clearly dominated by South Africa, followed by Egypt and this is the reason why the countries with the joint calls performed better than those without the joint call during the period.

68 Degree of Collaboration The results show that the degree of collaboration among the joint call countries is very strong, steadily increasing to 89% from 81% at the beginning of the period. What was interesting is that although Egypt is second to South Africa in terms of productivity more than any other country, there is very little collaboration between the two countries. South Africa is strong in medical, social and management and economic sciences whilst Egypt is reasonably weak in these areas. Meanwhile, Egypt are very strong in Engineering, Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry and Computer Science. However, the degree and strength of collaboration between the two countries is very weak comparatively with South Africa collaborating more strongly with countries such as,, Namibia and Zambia Most Productive Institutions It is concerning that the most productive institutions continue to be South African and Egyptian universities. But what is even more concerning is the fact that Universities dominate the output and the private sector remains completely absent. In developed countries, partnerships between institutions of higher learning (universities) and businesses are very strong. These partnerships are especially relevant in the face of increasing economic pressure and global competition, the need for interdisciplinary approaches and the growing complexity of the problems needing solutions. Emerging areas of study are becoming progressively interdisciplinary, encompassing the traditional sciences, engineering, medicine, computer science and social sciences. Academic institutions are well-equipped at facilitating collaboration between traditionally separate disciplines and can serve industry by filling the existing research gap. Modern challenges to advancing research, innovation and technological development cannot be separated from the involvement of the private sector. Strategies to increase academic-industry partnerships in Africa in general, and amongst the bilateral agreement and joint call countries can encourage increasingly robust and collaborative growth as a result of growing economic volatility, competition among emerging economies and a rapidly evolving technological landscape. This can possibly close the glaring and continuously widening gap between the productivity output of developed countries versus African countries. Public funding for academic research should be reduced and be mainly skewed toward limited fields of study. DST/NRF should work on strategies to address the dependence on public funds Fields/Subject Areas of Research What is interesting is that the criteria and/or selection of fields/areas used when agreeing to collaborate amongst the countries with the bilateral calls is very broad and does not correspond to international conventions of research area identification in most global databases. The most prolific and widely used databases such as SCOPUS, Web of Science, Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators SM database to mention but a few utilise 26 standard fields in order to classify the research areas. However, the higher level and/or combined and or completely new descriptions currently utilised during the bilateral call process may present a challenge in monitoring, measuring, managing and making decisions on research outputs by the NRF and their partners. It may also present challenges in aligning research to international standards Individual Country Productivity in Research Areas The study also looked at individual country strengths in different fields. Information from the results obtained therefrom can be utilised strategically to inform collaboration patterns. A ranking and decision making system/algorithm has been proposed to support bilateral and/or multilateral agreement decision making. The NRF and partners can use this algorithm when making strategic decisions around best suited collaborations drawing on various synergies.

69 69 The study identified a discernible pattern showing the domination of South Africa and Egypt and not very far behind are countries like Algeria,, and Zambia, relatively strong in some areas of research. What is interesting about the algorithm is another discernible pattern separating it into four quadrants as follows: Upper Left Quadrant - The strong and relatively strong countries in particular fields Lower Left Quadrant - Weak areas amongst otherwise strong countries Upper Right Quadrant Relatively mildly strong areas amongst lower rank countries Lower Right Quadrant - Weak areas in ALL countries The algorithm can be utilised strategically in order to optimise research collaboration patterns where for instance one can easily identify countries that are very strong and pair them up with weak countries for capacity building (strong student-weak student relationship). Also, one can identify very strong countries in particular fields in order to drive bilateral or indeed multilateral activity, productivity and innovation upwards. Apart from the quadrant analysis, the algorithm can be developed to support collaboration decision making based on calculating a simple scale or factor (F) per country can be calculated as follows F = (x)/total Where x = Number in bracket on the table and Factor (F) ranges from 0 to 1. 0 being worst case and 1 being very good. This means South Africa produces 42% of the medical research output amongst these countries which is very strong. On the other hand, Angola produced 307 publications. F A therefore = 307/89847 = (0.3%) Consequently therefore, SA is a much advanced research country than Angola. The possible bilateral relationship that can exist is one of SA helping to build the capacity of Angola. In order to optimise synergies, the algorithm can be used to identify other strong countries and/or weak countries in the field of medicine and a multilateral relationship developed with the best possibilities of outcomes be it increase in research output or increase in number of students trained, or increase in innovation output. This proposed algorithm can recommend relationships based on policy or priority requirements for better proliferations as well as help classify countries for purposes of planning uniform interventions, collaborations, synergies and connections. The above proposed model(s) can be utilised to inform uniform decision making when South Africa, through DST/NRF engages in bilateral and/or multilateral agreements Linkage of Algorithm to Per Million Output Analysis The ranking and decision support system has been studied based on the per million indicator. As discussed previously, it resulted in a more accurate depiction of the relative strengths per country that will support collaboration decision making. An example can be taken in medicine research output for instance where one can compare South Africa and Angola for purposes of decision making. South Africa produced publications and the total amongst all the countries amongst the Category 1 is F SA therefore = 38066/89847 = 0.42 (42%)

70 Assessment and Capacity of Joint Call Contribution to Research Output Amongst Countries with Active Joint Calls Absolute volume of published papers is one indicator of research activity and indirectly of research capacity. The result therefore that the joint call authors contributed only 0.23% (758 papers) of the volume of published papers (328,573) by the researchers in countries with Joint Calls is but a drop in the ocean. From 22 bilateral agreements, SA had eight (8) agreements that are currently active through joint calls that resulted in funding to 269 pairs of researchers in joint projects valued at approximately R44m (from the SA DST/NRF and more from other partners). It is strongly recommended that the DST/NRF consider a different approach when collaborating such as the use of the decision making algorithm proposed by this study Important to note though is that there is a significant amount of research activity, collaborations, partnerships and outputs in terms of publications amongst these countries with joint call initiatives even without the joint call. This research activity is what constitutes the balance of 99.77%. In order to increase the impact of the Joint calls, it is recommended that the DST/NRF conduct a situational analysis in order to better understand the research dynamics in this space that will inform bilateral/ multilateral corporation priorities and strategies going forward This research has provided an introduction to the patterns of research activity among Joint Call countries. The volume of activity contributed by the Joint Call initiative appears very small, much smaller than is desirable if the potential contribution of researchers is to be realized for the benefit of the populations Analysis of Joint Call Agreements A study of the general conditions of the joint call agreements revealed that: Generally, these funds were earmarked specifically to support travel costs, running expenses and workshops/conferences attendances or hosting Grant awarded amount to a maximum of R per project over a period of two years This structure of the joint calls presented several challenges. Firstly the funding does not appear to be enough and it has limited duration to make any meaningful impact. Papers are at times published after several years research or after conclusion of PhD programme/studies Thirdly, it was limited only to particular activities which in themselves did not emphasize key outputs such as support of postgraduate students and/or insist on publication output. Other challenges included lack of consistent reporting by the grantees, insufficient collaborative activities limited only to a few visits between the researchers. Furthermore, some implementing partners in some countries did not release funds to researchers as agreed whilst other still released funds to researchers late. It is recommended that the conditions of the joint calls, which have inherent limitations, be restructured, re-prioritised and for inputs to be linked to output indicators. This study found that South Africa continues to be the powerhouse of research output on the continent and strategic restructuring of the Joint calls to link with other programmes would potentially increase the research output across the continent and would definitely increase Africa s global contribution. 8.3 Capacity of Countries with only Bilateral s not yet activated by Joint Calls The countries without active joint calls contributed 0.76% to the global output and this translated to 30.2% of publication output from Africa. This contribution is less than the output from the Category 1 countries whose output was 1.48% and 59% globally and in Africa respectively.

71 71 Furthermore, a study of the publication trends since 2008 to 2016, it is clear that the contribution of the countries with joint calls was consistently more than those without bilateral joint calls. This trend may suggest the success of the positive input of the Joint Call initiative. However, one needs to be cautious in that it may be due to the inclusion of South African data in this analysis. What it important to note though is that this inclusion contributes positively and consequently, it is recommended that the bilateral agreement be activated through respective joint calls. To increase the success rate for these joint calls, it is recommended that the approach incorporate the recommendation of using strategic ranking and decision making support algorithm presented herein. Additionally, analysis was conducted comparing the ranking of countries based on number versus per million publication output. This study found that the per capita model gives a more accurate depiction of the productivity. This model is recommended for use when developing strategies as well as conducting situational analyses before entering into bilateral/ multilateral agreements. It is recommended that a strategic roadmap of engagement with these Category 2 countries, with consideration of lessons learnt from Joint Calls with Category 1 countries be considered as presented in Section 9.4 below. 8.4 ST&I cooperation priority setting going forward This study has highlighted research patterns in African countries with bilateral agreements and with or without active Joint Calls. It has found that the contribution, on a global and continental scale, is smaller than desirable if the potential contribution of researchers is to be realized for the benefit of its populations. Important to note though is that there is a significant amount of research activity, collaborations, partnerships and outputs in terms of publications amongst these countries with joint call initiatives even without the joint call Proposed Priority Setting Framework Various tools are recommended that can inform current and future cooperation and collaboration strategy. These are such as Situational and SWOT Analyses used together with a decision support algorithm. A proposed four-level framework is presented in Figure 21.

72 72 Figure 21 : Proposed Priority Setting Framework Level 1 Analysis of Information Sources Per-country situational analysis of collaboration patterns (Government, academia, private industry) - (LITERATURE Per-country SWOT Analysis (QUALITATIVE SURVEY/ STRATEGIC DOCUMENTS) Level 2 Working materials National challenges, trends and socioeconomic goals (LITERATURE / STRATEGIC DOCS) Set perspective STI areas for Future cooperation (QUANTITATIVE SURVEY) Level 3 Priority Setting Set Priorities (Algorithm and decision support Model) based on strengths and capacities to prioritise collaboration thematic areas Level 4 Implementation Revise program of ST&I cooperation with Stage 1 Countries (e.g. introduce multilateral Joint Calls) Roadmap for ST&I collaboration development for Stage 2 and other African countries Proposed Situational Analysis The first level would be to take a closer look at each country with a bilateral agreement using a situational/swot analyses. (Figure 22) It is a well-documented model for measuring spread of research activities per country. The second level would then incorporate current global and national challenges as well as set perspectives for future cooperation. The third level would then revisit the priorities as previously set and the final level is implementation.

73 73 Figure 22 : Situational Analysis order to identify the impact/success of collaborations. Furthermore, it will help: Identify how public funding can leverage/attract additional resources from private sector and/or identify the drivers of private sector interest in supporting research. Conduct a study to show percentage of public investment in STI vs non-public (e.g. private sector, developing partners and philanthropist) in the African region(s). Qualitative assessment required to identify the issues that cannot be brought out by a typical bibliometric assessment (quantitative). This may highlight challenges such as better researcher oversight, emphasis on inputs, outputs, outcomes and impact Figure 22 has four quadrants which characterize collaborative research. They run from spontaneous ( bottom-up ) research deriving from the interests of scientists, to highly organized research defined by a funding party. Activities on the left side of the figure might be described as dynamic in that collaboration requires active learning and sharing of tasks and of information among researchers who are often geographically dispersed. Activities on the right might be described as material/institutional research in that collaboration relies on a shared resource or common research location. Mega-science projects could be placed in the bottom right quadrant: organized and centralized. Scientist initiated research would be placed in the upper left quadrant. Conduct a gap analysis to identify strong research institutions as centres of excellence that can be utilised to strengthen weak ones Align how research and innovation outcomes (in particular from joint calls) can inform policy formulation (innovation > policy > impact) Understanding these patterns of research activities and collaboration, would help to understand collaborative outputs (publications, patents and post-graduate students) and how these outputs can be utilised in

74 74 9. CONCLUSION This study was commissioned by the DST-NRF in Feb 2017 with the aim of conducting an assessment of research and development priority areas of South Africa and its Science, Technology and Innovation collaborative partners on the African continent. It has provided a higher level perspective of intra- and intercontinental research activities. From an Outside-in perspective, the volume of activity appears smaller than is desirable if the potential contribution of Africa s researchers is to be realized for the benefit of its populations. The trends for both Category 1 and 2 countries, compared to the global output, is significantly small. These findings corroborate the conclusions of previous studies which identified that African research are still in an embryonic stage on the African continent. Of concern is the fact that growth has slowed down significantly. Although the publication output numbers more than doubled over the period 2008 to 2016 this growth has slowed down significantly especially in the years 2015 (2.19%) and 2016 (7.9%) from the percentage observed at the beginning of the period in 2008 (20.47)%. Overall, the growth productivity amongst these countries is on the decline. Ranking of Output Number versus per million population in areas/fields of collaboration found that the latter is a more accurate indicator for measuring the productivity of a country. There seems to be no strategic collaborative partnerships between the most prolific countries. Furthermore, there seems to be no strategic approach to determination of collaboration in particular priority areas e.g. between SA and Egypt. Both countries have little collaboration despite being the continents first and second highest producers. From the Joint Calls, there seems to be no clear pattern as to how parties to bilateral agreements arrive at common priority areas. Furthermore, the nomenclature used does not correspond to international conventions of research area identification in most global databases including SCOPUS, Web of Science, Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators SM database. Furthermore, there is no clear strategy used to arrive at research collaboration areas based on individual country profiles and/or strengths in differe nt fields. A ranking and decision making system/ algorithm has been proposed to support bilateral and/ or multilateral agreement decision making in the future. This algorithm is based on the more accurate per million indicator. Universities dominate the output and the private sector remains largely absent. Strategies to link government priority areas to academic-industryprivate partnerships need to be developed. These can encourage increasingly robust and collaborative growth as a result of growing economic volatility, competition among emerging economies and a rapidly evolving technological landscape. These can redress the current declining output from Africa. Outside-In analysis using Scientometrics employing bibliometric techniques, suggests that the Joint Call Projects had little impact on research productivity, contributing only 0.23% of the publication output. However, a desk study using more qualitative approach revealed significant impact in terms of capacity building, discoveries and financing. Whilst the former suggests low return on investment of the R44 million by DST/NRF, the latter methods suggest otherwise. However, strategies need to be developed to ensure that the Inside-Out versus Outside-In perspectives are reconciled.

75 RECOMMENDATIONS Bottlenecks of Joint Call Funds Conditions for utilisation (only mobility and running expenses), the amounts awarded (only R ) and the duration (only 2-years) of the support restrict the possibility of positive outcomes and consequently impact. These need to be restructured in order to link Joint Calls to Scholarships and infrastructure support. Selection of Research Priority Areas Apart from research priority area nomenclature alignment to international conventions, the use of a more innovative and/or scientific decision support system in identifying these research areas is recommended. A practical model/framework, as recommended in this report, would be very useful when planning bilateral engagements in the future. This can link priority area selection and award of joint calls to individual or collective country profiles taking into consideration variables such as size of STI community resource capacity, human, infrastructure, prolific institutions and otherwise. Multilateral instead of Bilateral intra-africa Corporation - For increased synergy, it is strongly recommended that intra-africa collaboration be extended to multilateral partnerships guided by collective interests amongst countries. A further extension to this would be the consideration of establishment of an ST&I Research Africa organisation that can promote the collective interests of the Research Funding and Research Performing stakeholders in Africa. Research Sensitisation Researchers need to be informed of the bigger picture in order for them to meaningfully and consistently report relevant information and aim towards important and visible outputs, such as publications, support of postgraduate students especially PhDs. Monitoring Tools There is a lack of tools to actively monitor research progress and share outcomes on projects undertaken in bilateral agreements. Tools need to be developed that will guide collaboration as well as collect and analyse interim and or final project reports in a timely manner for decision making Non-public Funding There is a lot of research activity going on outside the joint call initiatives funded by private sources. There is a need to study the patterns of private source research funding in order to align the with national priority areas and to avoid STI research agenda being dominated by international partner interests with or without consideration of national government priorities. The non-public sector (including the international funders) should be integrated into the design and implementation of joint programmes. This will also minimise research activity duplication and increase collective impact encouraging a coordinated approach in addressing national, regional and continental challenges. (Endnotes) United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics NRF 2020 Strategy 3 NRF 2020 Strategy 4 The National Research Foundation of South Africa - Fostering Science and Research Collaboration in Africa Subramanyan, K. (1983). Bibliometric studies of research collaboration: a review, Journal of Information Science, 6 (1): Subramanyam, K. (1983). Bibliometric studies of research collaboration: A review. Journal of Information Science, 6(1), Pouris, A. (1991). Effects of funding policies on research publications in South Africa. SA Journal of Science, 87(3-4),

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77 Joseph Senona Director: Africa Bilateral Cooperation Department of Science and Technology Tel : Joseph.Senona@dst.gov.za Website: Michael Nxumalo Director: Africa Collaborative Grants and Initiatives National Research Foundation Tel: michael@nrf.ac.za Website: