Which Factors Influence International Research Collaboration in Africa?

Abstract

It is commonly accepted that international research collaboration improves scientists’ abilities and performance. In this chapter, we investigate the question: what are the characteristics of African researchers who collaborate more often with international partners?. Data are taken from Web of Science and a survey that collected detailed information about the individual characteristics of 2954 African researchers in 42 African countries. We use descriptive statistics and an econometric model to discern the characteristics that are associated with higher levels of collaboration with researchers outside Africa. Overall, our results suggest that, on average, researchers who did their doctoral studies outside of Africa, had the opportunity to move abroad (over the past 3 years) and received a higher share of international funding (over the past 3 years), are more likely to collaborate more frequently with researchers outside of Africa. In our conclusions, we discuss that beyond increasing the availability of mobility scholarships and the amount of research funding for African scientists, policymakers and international organisations should also think in incentives to keep long-term research interactions and try to avoid unequal partnerships.