International partners play prominent role in Southern African research

Researchers in Southern Africa do not often collaborate amongst themselves, which leaves a gap for influence from non-African partners to set priorities, a bibliometric analysis has found.

Anastassios Pouris, a researcher at the University of South Africa, examined publishing data for South African authors between 2012 and 2014.

Only 6 per cent of papers co-authored with a researcher outside of South Africa came from the Southern African Development community region.