Scientometric research has traditionally focused on the study of scientific publications, their characteristics and their impact. However, the more classical use of scientometric approaches have hardly ever consider the human factor embedded in the production of new knowledge. One of the main reasons for this lack of research on the scientific workforce was the lacking of accurate data about the individuals involved in the production of the knowledge and their relationships with other entities such as affiliations, funders, etc. This situation has changed in recent years with most bibliometric databases implementing author name disambiguation algorithms (e.g. Scopus, WoS, Dimensions, Microsoft Academic) as well as the creation of extensive individual researcher registries (e.g. ORCID). This project focuses on a multi-source examination and development of scientometric analytics targeted to describe, understand and monitor the African scientific workforce.

Research team

Human resources for science and innovation

Research area