Global Research Report Africa

GLOBAL RESEARCH REPORT

AFRICA
APRIL 2010
JONATHAN ADAMS
CHRISTOPHER KING
DANIEL HOOK

EVIDENCE

THE AUTHORS
Dr. Jonathan Adams is Director, Research Evaluation.
He was a founding Director of Evidence Ltd, the UK specialist on research performance analysis and interpretation.
Christopher King is Editor of Science Watch (ScienceWatch.com), a newsletter and web resource tracking trends and performance in basic research.
Dr Daniel Hook is Managing Director of Symplectic Limited, the UK-based research management information company, and holds visiting academic positions at Imperial College London and Washington University in St Louis.

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ISBN: 1-904431-25-9

GLOBAL RESEARCH REPORT

GLOBAL RESEARCH REPORT

AFRICA
APRIL 2010

INTRODUCTION
This report is part of a series launched by
Thomson Reuters to inform policymakers and others about the landscape and dynamics of the global research base.

regressing on objectives to achieve universal primary education by 2015. Internet penetration is good only in North Africa, constraining communication and access to knowledge.i

The global research landscape is changing. Our previous reports have described this as ‘the new geography of science’, borrowing from UK thinktank Demos which published a prescient analysis in 2005 pointing out the growth of research alongside emergent economies.

Yet the continent is also home to a rich history of higher education and knowledge creation. The
University of Al-Karaouine, at Fez in Morocco, was founded in CE 859 as a madrasa and is identified by many as the oldest degree-awarding institution in the world.ii It was followed in 970 by Al-Azhar
University in Egypt. While it was some centuries before the curriculum expanded from

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