Doctoral Degrees (Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST))

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST)) by Subject "Bibliometrics"

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    The contribution of the Water Research Fund for Southern Africa (WARFSA) to knowledge production and policy in the SADC water sector
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-04) Elema, Nico Michiel; Mouton, Johann; Cloete, Thomas Eugene; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) has been adopted by member states in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as the process to best manage water resources, with research as a major component in the process. Moreover, it is increasingly a requirement for universities and research institutions to indicate the benefit of their research. With various universities and research institutions (and varying levels of resources) conducting water research in the SADC region, outputs from the Water Research Fund of Southern Africa (WARFSA) provides an opportunity to analyse the impact of such research, given the regional nature of the programme. Moreover, given that the WARFSA was implemented between 1999 and 2007, the time-lag provide an opportunity to analyse the contribution to knowledge production, and specifically the scientific (citation) impact and, given its mandate from the SADC ministers, policy uptake. However, as no mechanism was put in place to attribute and monitor economic, ecological and social benefits from the WARFSA, this was excluded from the study. Applying a mixed methods approach, various aspects relating to water research knowledge production and policy uptake of research were investigated, resulting in this thesis being divided into three parts. Part A framing the research project, Part B presenting a SADC water sectoral analysis and analysis of knowledge production in the SADC region, and Part C presenting results from the analysis of knowledge production and policy aspects of the Water Research Fund for Southern Africa (WARFSA). Research methodologies comprised a literature review to determine a theoretical framework, and an analysis of previous empirical studies on the scientific contribution of water research in the SADC region, and research on knowledge produced and citation impact. In addition, scientometric techniques were used to analyse citation data from water publications in the SADC region between 1980 and 2016, and knowledge produced from research projects funded through the WARFSA. Lastly, interviews were conducted with researchers and stakeholders involved in the WARFSA programme, to ascertain policy uptake from the WARFSA. As the study has shown, researchers affiliated with South African universities and research institutions have produced 84% of water research in the region, and for this reason, bibliometric data was first analysed to include citation data from all SADC countries, then South African citation data on its own, which was followed by SADC countries were South African citation data was excluded (referred to in the study as ‘SADC-ExSA’ countries). As already mentioned, one of the main findings from the study was that water research in the SADC region was mainly produced by South African researchers. However, on a per capita basis, researchers from Botswana, followed by the Seychelles and then South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe had produced the most water research. As most previous bibliometric studies were conducted on the South African water sector, findings from the analysis of citation data from South African researchers supported the previous bibliometric studies. The analysis of citation data from SADC-ExSA countries provided a clearer picture of the contribution the WARFSA programme has made to knowledge production in the region, especially when comparing citation data before and after the implementation period of WARFSA in the early 2000s. It was further evident that most of the 78 research projects funded through the WARFSA were implemented in SADC-ExSA countries, and benefited these countries most. If one were to consider only water research output in SADC-ExSA countries during the implementation period of WARFSA between 1999 and 2007, a significant increase is observed during this period. In addition, the study highlights the significance of the annual WaterNet/WARFSA/GWP SA symposium, which was initially presented along with WARFSA and continued after the initial two phases of the WARFSA. The study further highlighted the large contribution of external donor funding towards water research in especially SADC-ExSA countries, which some could argue borders on a dependency on external funding, when compared to more local support for water research in South Africa. In terms of the contribution of the WARFSA towards policy uptake, the study highlighted the gap between the research community and policymakers, the mixed involvement of practitioners and policymakers in the research projects and the positive role of intermediaries and knowledge brokers in the WARFSA-funded projects. Finally, the study highlighted the challenges in attributing research findings to policy relevance. In conclusion, this study recommends the potential adaptation of the HERG Payback framework to reflect ecological benefits resulting from research better. Moreover, such adaptations to the HERG Payback framework could strengthen future phases of the WARFSA to identify, monitor and report the benefits of research. In addition, such a monitoring function should be established outside research projects, to support research projects better.
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    Research production and research collaboration in Zimbabwe: A bibliometric study in context
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-03) Ngwenya, Similo; Boshoff, Nelius; CREST; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST)
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Several bibliometric studies on research production and research collaboration in Africa have been carried out. Most of the studies use mainstream bibliographic databases (Scopus and Web of Science [WoS]) as theirmain sourcesfor bibliometric analysis. Such studies rarely apply context explicitly in bibliometric analysis. In addition, the studies almost exclusively use data sets at article level, with articles as the unit of analysis. The studies also typically regard international research collaboration as the most important measure ofinternational research participation in the African research landscape, with little attention to additional measuresadapted to the African context. Finally, existing bibliometric studies on Africa rarely use data from other sources (e.g. surveys or interviews) to reflect on research collaboration. The main goal of this dissertation is to address these limitations within a study on research production andcollaborationin Zimbabwe. To achieve the study goal, aquantitative case study of research production and research collaboration in Zimbabwe was conducted. Two quantitative methods were used to illuminate the specific case: a bibliometric analysis and a web-basedsurvey. Data for the bibliometric analysis were obtained from three bibliographic databases: Scopus, WoS and the National Research Database of Zimbabwe (NRDZ). The NRDZ was added to reflect on the value of using a national research database as an additional bibliometric data source. Although bibliometricsis useful for profiling research collaboration in Zimbabwe, it cannot capture the full range of social dynamics experienced by researchers. Therefore, a web-basedsurvey was conducted to explore other aspects and experiences of research collaboration in order to provide more depth and context to the bibliometric analysis. A database of published researchers (obtained from the bibliometric database) and potentially research-active researchers(obtained from institutionalwebsites) was compiled and used to create a distribution list for the web-basedsurvey. Patterns of research production andresearch collaboration of Zimbabwean organisations in the different national sectors and fields, and within four socio-political periods (the context), were profiled. The study also converted an article database into a database of article authors. This enabled the identification of theZimbabwean research workforce. Not only have the research workforcebeen identified, but also the collaboration patterns of such researchers (article authors). The author level analysis made possible a comparison between the percentagesof articles with research collaboration and the percentages of article authors involved in research collaboration. A comparison of research workers in Zimbabwe (as bibliometrically identified) with external information about the number of researchers in Zimbabwe provided additionalinsights.The study’s results have the potential to enrich further bibliometric studies on research collaboration in Africa. It introduced the notionof ‘international national organisations’(INOs), which is a new way of measuring international participation in Africa's research. It has also developed a new classification framework of types of authorship that accommodates the phenomenon of INOs as a form of international research participation. This framework not only accommodates the phenomenon of INOs, but can also be used in other bibliometric studies on research collaboration to studyauthors with dual international affiliations. However, the study’s most important contribution is the integration of two mainstream bibliographic databases (Scopus and WoS) to create a new database of Zimbabwean articles, and its supplementation with articles from the NRDZ. Accordingly, recommendations with a view to both further study and research policywere made.
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    A scientometric analysis of the science system in Tanzania
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-03) Maziku, Joseph; Mouton, Johann; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST)
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The main goal of the study was to conduct an assessment of the state of science in Tanzania. More specific objectives focused on the levels of research investment, human resources for S&T, and the research performance of the system. In addition we also investigated the challenges that young scientists in the country face. Our study shows that Tanzanian expenditure in R&D remains still below 1% of GDP and lags behind several African countries including Kenya the sister EAC country. In spite of the slight increase in spending in R&D from 0.38% in 2010 to 0.53% of the GDP in 2013, there is still overdependence on international funding sources. It was also found that the lack of research funding and funding for research equipment are the biggest challenges in the performance of research for young scientists. The study also found that Tanzania's human resources for S&T remains unacceptably small compared to several SADC countries, which results in relative low output per million of the population. However, it was revealed that there was a gradual increase in Tanzania scientific outputs from 339 publications in the year 2005 to 1389 publications in 2018 which is more than four times the growth of literature. In spite of the increase in the publications across all research fields,Tanzania dropped its position in world rank from position 74 in 2005 to position 80 in 2018. Tanzanian science remains strong in its traditional fields: the relative strength analysis revealed that the agricultural and health sciences, and to a lesser extent, the social sciences, are the most active fields compared to the world output across these fields. The overall top five prolific R&D institutions in the production of scientific papers are the MUHAS, UDSM, SUA, NIMR, and IHI. International co-authorship is on the increase in most fields, but these trends probably reflect the growing participation of Tanzanian scientists in global health and agricultural projects rather than any substantive growth in research collaboration. Our main recommendation is that the Tanzanian government commits to increasing its investment in R&D as aspired to by the R&D policy. In addition, the number of R&D personnel has to be increased to ensure that knowledge production continues to grow and the application of science, technology, and innovation for inclusive development is achieved.