Nanoscale research in South Africa: A mapping exercise based on scientometrics

This article reports the findings of a scientometric analysis of nanoscale research in South Africa during the period 2000–2005. The ISI databases were identified as the most appropriate information platform for the objectives of the investigation and have been interrogated for the identification of South African authors publishing in the field. The article identifies trends over time, major institutional contributors, journals in which South African authors publish their research, international collaborators and performance in comparison to four comparator countries (India, Brazil, South Korea and Australia). The major findings of the investigation are as follows: nanoscale research in South Africa is driven by individual researchers interests up to date and it is in its early stages of development; the country’s nanoscale research is below what would one expect in light of its overall publication output; the country’s nano-research is distributed to a number of Universities with subcritical concentration of researchers.     

A scientometric assessment of agricultural research in South Africa

This article reports the results of a scientometric assessment of agricultural research in South Africa over the period 1974–1984. The Science Literature Indicators Database of CHI is used and South Africa is compared with 7 other countries spread in America, Asia, Oceania, and Africa. The criteria used for the assessment are the contribution of each country to international agricultural literature (in terms of publications) and their impact in the Schubert-Glänzel-Braun Impact Scale. It was found that, although the South African contribution has improved in that period, it is comparable to that of Brazil and Argentina; that Nigeria and Israel produce 3 times more, and: that Australia and Canada contribute more than one order of magnitude of publications more than South Africa. As far as research impact is concerned Plant Science research in South Africa is rated fair in the Schubert-Glänzel-Braun scale, whilst Dairy and Animal Science and Veterinary research are rated poor.     

Dimensions of research planning: Comparative study of research units in six countries

This paper seeks to examine the characteristics and quality of research planning at the level of microcosm of the research unit in six countries — Argentina, Egypt, India, Republic of Korea, Poland and USSR. It is concerned basically with the following aspects: (i) differences in the characteristics and quality of research planning in research units in different countries and institutional settings; (ii)pattern of relationships between the indices of planning and three measures of effectiveness—scientific, user-oriented and administrative; and (iii) stability in the pattern of relationships across countries and measures of performance. As a result of analysis, a few universal indices have been identified that have consistent relationships across countries. It is concluded that the determinants of effectiveness of research planning depend upon the criteria used for measuring the performance of the research unit. Besides specificity of research goals, the most important predictors of performance are: conceptual challenge of the research programme and external linkages of the research group—linkages with scientific peers and potential users of research results.This is a revised version of the paper presented at XIth World Congress of Sociology, New Delhi, India, August 18–22, 1986.     

Scientometric research in South Africa and successful policy instruments

This document provides an analysis of scientometric research in South Africa and it discusses sources of growth in the country’s research literature in general. South Africa is identified to have limited expertise in the field revealed mainly during the last decade. However, the country is ranked 21st in the world among the countries publishing in the journal Scientometrics and it is the only African country with such a standing in the field. Identification of the forces affecting positively the growth in the number of research publications in the country indicates that the primary incentive fuelling the recent growth is the new funding formula in the country which subsidizes the universities by more than R100 000 for each publication that their staff produces. The increase in the number of journals indexed in the ISI Thomson Reuters database and the incorporation of social sciences at the NRF have also affected the growth of research publications, but to a lesser extent.     

A patentometric assessment of selected R&D priority areas in South Africa,a comparison with other BRICS countries

This study assessed the inventive activity through patents registered by South African researchers worldwide using the WIPO database. South Africa is the most prolific producer of patents in the African continent. In this study, the focus was on research priority areas documented in the South African government policy documents rather than the overall inventive output of the country. The research priority areas considered were ICT, nanotechnology, biotechnology, climate change, energy and health. Patents in the areas were compared with the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries and Egypt. The comparison was done using the revealed technological advantage sometimes referred to as the specialisation index. It is found that the two African countries have not increased their patent share significantly and are yet to find their specialisation. It was found that while South Africa is doing well in terms of patenting compared to other developing countries, the profile of inventions being patented are not necessarily aligned with the priority areas as documented in government policy.     

A bibliometric study of bioinformatics research in South Africa

This paper reports on the practises of bioinformatics research in South Africa using bibliometric techniques. The search strategy was designed to cover the common concepts in biological data organisation, retrieval and analysis; the development and application of tools and methodologies in biological computation; and related subjects in genomics and structural bioinformatics. The South African literature in bioinformatics has grown by 66.5% between 2001 and 2006. However, its share of world production is not on par with comparator countries, Brazil, India and Australia.     

Scientometric impact assessment of a research policy instrument: the case of rating researchers on scientific outputs in South Africa

The influence of the National Research Foundation’s (NRF) rating system on the productivity of the South African social science researchers is investigated scientometrically for the period from 1981 to 2006. Their output performance is mainly indicated by their research publications. Following international best practice in scientometrics as well as the behavioural reinforcement theory, we employed the “before/after control impact (BACI) method”, as well as the well known econometric breakpoint test as proposed by Chow. We use as control group the publications in the field of clinical medicine. The field is not supported by NRF and hence clinical medicine researchers are not affected by the evaluation and rating system. The findings show a positive impact of the NRF programme on the research outputs of social sciences researchers and the implementation of the programme has increased the relevant population of research articles by an average of 24.5% (during the first 5 years) over the expected number of publication without the programme. The results confirm the scientometric findings of other studies (e.g. that of Nederhof) that ratings promulgate research productivity.     

Scientometrics of a pandemic: HIV/AIDS research in South Africa and the World

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is of international interest with the 2008 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine having being awarded for the discovery of the virus that causes AIDS. South Africa has a particular interest in the field of HIV/AIDS research as it is the country with the largest number of HIV infections in the world and the issue has created a number of political and scientific debates. This investigation identifies the state of HIV/AIDS related research in South Africa vis-a-vis the rest of the world using evaluative scientometrics in order to inform relevant policy. South Africa is identified as producing an increasing number of HIV/AIDS related publications, making it one of the most prolific fields in the country. The rest of the world appears to have stabilized its research efforts after the development of highly active antiretroviral therapies. The USA is identified as the main producer of HIV/AIDS research while Europe appears to under-emphasise the issue. Comparison of the world??s most prolific universities with those in South Africa identifies that the latter has a fragmented system. A number of policy issues are discussed.     

The fishing industry research institute (South Africa)

An introduction to the activities of the South African fishing Industry Research Institute is given with emphasis on chilling and refrigeration.     

Co-authorship networks and research impact in large research facilities: benchmarking internal reports and bibliometric databases

Scientometrics - In this paper, we address the main differences of the scientific production between internal and external researcher groups of a synchrotron radiation facility. Through the...     

Medical research in South Africa: a scientometric analysis of trends,patterns, productivity and partnership

Being a scientifically active country in Africa, South Africa has made significant strides in the production of scientific publications. Medicine is one branch of science that has achieved a remarkable position in this regard. Extracting and analyzing medical publications for three decades and at regular intervals (1975–2005) from the SCI database, this paper pioneers an attempt to find out whether the reported pace of growth in the production of scientific papers in medicine is an effect of partnerships that scholars have with their counterparts within the organization, within the country, or with those in other countries. This paper also presents the unique patterns of scientific research in medicine, taking into account factors such as the count and fractional count of papers, citations, trends of growth, sectoral participation, partners, and publication outlets, and seeks to provide new insights into the directions medical science is taking in South Africa today.     

An integrated sustainability performance assessment and benchmarking of breweries

Breweries are responding to some sustainability challenges but many of them find sustainability assessment and reporting to be very complex, difficult, and time-consuming tasks. Despite several existing frameworks for the sustainability assessment of companies, none of them specifically addresses breweries. They do not provide them with a transparent, comprehensive, and integrated approach to sustainability assessment, adjusted to the particular circumstances of traditional beer production. In view of these requirements by the brewing industry, this article aims to support breweries in sustainability assessment activities by proposing a methodology for integrated performance assessment. This methodology proposes environmental, societal, economic, and integrated indicators reflecting the characteristics of the brewing industry, compatible with those general indicators proposed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Although it is important to assess sustainability using several indicators, it may sometimes be difficult to make decisions based on a wide number of performance measurements. Thus, the proposed methodology gradually aggregates sustainable development indicators into sustainability sub-indices and, finally, to a composite sustainability index that tracks integrated information on the economic, environmental, and societal performances of a brewery over time. They can be used both internally, for the identification of “hot spots” and externally, for sustainability reporting and stakeholder engagement. Since breweries strive to outperform their competitors, the proposed methodology enables the benchmarking of a brewery against best performance practices, as a catalyst for improvement and innovation, by providing benchmark values for each indicator. The case study presented in this article illustrates how the proposed methodology could be easily applied in practice, and stimulates breweries to test their effectiveness themselves.     

From impact assessment to effective management plans: learning from the Great Brak Estuary in South Africa

In 1990, the environmental impacts of an upstream dam on the Great Brak town and estuary were assessed and a management plan and monitoring programme were devised. In a recent review of the monitoring results, planned water releases and interventions in the form of timely mouth breaching were found to have ensured that, although the estuary's abiotic functioning has altered, its biotic health has not deteriorated over the last ten years. The lessons learned are captured in the revised management plan of 2004, which exhibits a clear shift to explicit communication plans and operational procedures, indicating that the initial environmental impact assessment (EIA) products were rudimentary. We argue that learning-through-doing and active public participation in the Great Brak case are essential ingredients in the adaptive management that is fundamental to successful EIA follow-up.     

Membrane development in South Africa

This article gives a broad overview of the advances in membrane research and development in South Africa. In particular, the more recent innovations are discussed.     

Science and scientific collaboration in South Africa: apartheid and after

Scientific collaboration is growing in its importance; more so in Asian and African countries. This paper examines the scenario of science and scientific collaboration in South Africa which had passed through the colonial and apartheid regimes before it became a democracy in 1994. South African science under distinct political periods moved through some difficult periods but it did not badly affect the progress and direction of South African science. Science and scientific collaboration continued to grow under its major political phases amidst serious challenges. Despite internal conflict and boycott by the international scientific community, South Africa could move onto a stable and steady path of growth in science and collaboration under apartheid which is being carried on in the new South Africa. Collaborative research is encouraged at various levels of knowledge production and in science. The importance science and scientific development is gaining in today’s South Africa is remarkable.     

Politics and Photography in Apartheid South Africa

Resistance or struggle photography is a term describing the photographic documentation of conflict between oppressed and oppressor from the perspective of the subjugated. An example of this genre is explored in the context of apartheid South Africa during the 1980s through the work of a collective called Afrapix. This group's images of the repression of Black and Coloured populations by the apartheid regime, although largely curbed in South Africa, found an extensive international reception. These photographs contributed to the worldwide condemnation and sanctions that ultimately led to the collapse of the apartheid government. Whether photographs should be used as weapons in the political struggle, a position fostered by the African National Congress (ANC) and accepted by Afrapix, is explored through the divergent views of the photographer David Goldblatt. The decline of Afrapix is examined in relation to shifting market and aesthetic considerations following the end of apartheid.     

The objectivity of national research foundation peer review in South Africa assessed against bibliometric indexes

This paper examines the strength of association between the outcomes of National Research Foundation (NRF) peer review based rating mechanisms, and a range of objective measures of performance of researchers. The analysis is conducted on 1932 scholars that have received an NRF rating or an NRF research chair. We find that on average scholars with higher NRF ratings record higher performance against research output and impact metrics. However, we also record anomalies in the probabilities of different NRF ratings when assessed against bibliometric performance measures, and record a disproportionately large incidence of scholars with high peer-review based ratings with low levels of recorded research output and impact. Moreover, we find strong cross-disciplinary differences in terms of the impact that objective levels of performance have on the probability of achieving different NRF ratings. Finally, we report evidence that NRF peer review is less likely to reward multi-authored research output than single-authored output. Claims of a lack of bias in NRF peer review are thus difficult to sustain.