Sub-Saharan African Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Research

Book excerpt: This book analyzes Africa's current performance in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) research, as well as future trends. It looks at Africa's research performance over a decade, what it means for the continent's development and how it can benefit the growing number of young people who leave university each year looking for jobs. The book focuses on research output and citation impact, important indicators of the strength of a region's research enterprise. These indicators are correlated with the region's long-term development and important drivers of economic success. Moreover, research is a key ingredient for quality higher education. The research performance of these regions is compared to that of South Africa, Malaysia, and Vietnam; the latter two countries had a comparable research base to the SSA regions at the beginning of the period of analysis.