The central role of the modern research university within the knowledge economy is now generally appreciated. Although it is recognized that knowledge is also produced outside the university, there is—if anything—greater appreciation today of the critical role and function of the university in the production of scientific knowledge. There is every indication that the central role of the university in modern day knowledge economies will only increase as the economy and society become even more reliant on knowledge.

However, it is not self-evident that this trend necessarily applies to universities in many poor and developing countries and specifically not to many sub-Saharan African countries. In many of these countries the university is often the main, if not only, site of scientific knowledge production. Unlike many of the developed countries in the North, these countries do not have an abundance of private research laboratories, well-resourced by government institutes. Such countries rely heavily on these universities for producing basic research as well as for being a reservoir of applied and problem-solving research and the production of highly skilled knowledge workers. Unfortunately, over the last thirty years, the research capacity at many of these institutions has been gradually eroded to the extent that one could not refer to these universities as vibrant and sustainable scientific institutions. In fact, one could claim that science in many African countries has, in the recent past, been systematically de-institutionalized. This currently has and will continue to have negative effects on scientific innovation in Africa.

The Decline of University Research in Africa

Various international forces associated with the globalization and internationalization of trade in the 1980s and 1990s have had a devastating effect on the economies of many African countries. The decline in export volumes and the relative decline in the price of primary products in world trade in the 1980s and 1990s, combined with the mishandling of exchange rates and of external reserves, and the huge external debt overhang together created major resource gaps for the countries of Africa. This put serious pressure on their import capacity and the availability of resources for essential economic and social investment. The result was an increased dependence of the typical sub-Saharan African country on aid from developed countries.

At the same time, international agencies, most notably the World Bank, decided to privilege expenditure on basic education at the expense of support for higher education. This policy position was based on two premises. The first was the belief that the returns on investments in primary and secondary education are higher than those to higher education. The second reason relates to concerns that equity and access to basic education would naturally lead to an emphasis on primary education, which increased exponentially in many African countries. The result was quite predictable, with many universities thrown into financial crisis, laboratories and libraries not receiving any maintenance, overcrowded lecture rooms, and flight of the top academics from these institutions.

Research and scholarship would be one of the main losers during these years. Africa’s share of world science, as measured in papers published in the citation indexes of the Institute for Scientific Information, have been declining steadily over the past decade. Bibliometric studies done at the University of Leiden’s Centre for Science and Technology Studies show that sub-Saharan Africa’s share of world scientific papers declined from one percent in 1987 to 0.7 percent in 1996. These diminishing shares of African science overall do not reflect a decrease in an absolute sense, but rather an increase in publication output less than the worldwide growth rate. Africa has lost 11 percent of its share in global science since its peak in 1987; sub-Saharan science has lost almost a third (31 percent).

Numerous studies have been conducted over the past 10 to15 years that demonstrate, quite convincingly, that research at former well-resourced and supported institutions such as Makerere University in Uganda, Ibadan in Nigeria, and University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, have deteriorated. Research infrastructure and the general state of laboratories at many institutions have suffered from a lack of maintenance and lag in the replacement of old equipment. In addition, the quality of library resources has remained poor overall, with many university libraries not even using automated management systems. The demand for sufficient research funding for ongoing research and scholarship continues as does the need for proper research management and support at most of these institutions.

The cumulative effect of the funding policies of the last two decades of the 1900s and the huge growth in student enrollments in higher education institutions, combined with continuing political instability in many African countries have created a state of affairs which is best described as the “de-institutionalization” of science.

De-institutionalized Research

Science systems in developed and highly industrialized countries have a certain number of clear and evident features. Such systems are dense (well-populated) with scientific institutions, defined as any formal organization or entity which is dedicated to the pursuit of scientific knowledge production, dissemination, and utilization. This definition includes bodies that perform research and development (R&D), such as university centers, laboratories, and institutes, as well as R&D performing entities outside the higher education sector. It also includes scientific publishing houses, journals, conferences, workshops, and seminars that are “organizations” for the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Additionally, bodies such as technology incubators, technology transfer offices, patenting offices, and so on promote the utilization and commercialization of scientific knowledge.

In a modern science system there are typically a multitude of these scientific institutions that perform clearly articulated functions and roles and together constitute what could be termed the “national mode of scientific production,” according to Roland Waast and Jacques Gaillard of the Institute for Development Research in Paris. The “national mode” means that science is conducted for the public good and that the direction of science is shaped and steered by a nation’s most pressing socioeconomic needs. It also implies that the state assumes a major responsibility for financing research and development activities.

Unfortunately, few or none of the features of modern science system apply to many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Many of the scientific institutions in these countries are fragile and susceptible to the vagaries of political and military events, are severely under-resourced, and suffer because of a lack of clarity and articulation of science governance issues (demonstrated by constant shifts in ministerial responsibility for science). In fact, one could even refer to some of these science systems and the associated institutions as operating in a subsistence mode where they struggle to even reproduce themselves. A “subsistence mode” refers to a system that basically produces knowledge for its own use only and does not export knowledge. In fact, it does not make a significant contribution in the global game of knowledge production. It is even debatable whether one can talk of a science system in many of these countries as they do not exhibit typical “systemic” characteristics. Institutions are not typically aligned through input, process, and output flows, and there is no typical systemic behavior in response to external changes and demands. Rather, the image of an assemblage of fragile, somewhat disconnected and constantly under-resourced institutions, is perhaps a more apt metaphor to describe the science arrangements in some of these countries.