The Stellenbosch University’'s Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) is offering this year a three-day workshop linked to the annual HERANA workshop, focused on Scientometrics, Rankings of African Universities, and Knowledge Productivity. CREST is the foremost competency centre on bibliometrics and scientometrics in Africa, and hosts the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Scientometrics and Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (SciSTIP).
HERANA is the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa, and includes flagship universities from eight African countries: University of Botswana, University of Cape Town (SA), University of Dar es Salaam (TZ), Universitiy of Nairobi (KE), Makerere University (UG), University of Mauritius, University of Ghana, and Eduardo Mondlane University (MZ). Institutional researchers, research development managers, registrars, quality managers, etc. from the different institutions meet annually to share best practices, present their data to each other, and learn about latest developments in the sector. This year, the focus is firmly on knowledge production and capacity development in scientometrics to better understand international university ranking systems and consider the development of a HERANA 'ranking' of African universities. The first set of workshops are presented by Prof Johann Mouton (Stellenbosch/CREST) and Prof Robert Tijssen (Leiden), while the second set are facilitated by Prof Nico Cloete. The workshop includes a visit to UCT's Research Development Department.One of the problems mentioned frequently regarding knowledge production in Africa is that only a tiny fraction of African scholarly journals are indexed in either Scopus or the Web of Science. The main bibliometric index is provided by AJOL, the African Journals Online; but AJOL does not include a citation index. Thus, there is quite a lot of work to be done; and if African universities want to find comparative metrics to measure and enhance their performance, then knowledge productivity cannot the be only ones; rather, the developmental university should also measure matters such as civic engagement; forms of community engagement; local community relationships; university - industry - government - civil society linkages; teaching quality etc; and perhaps accessibility, especially to historically disadvantaged, first generation and poor communities.
