Conservation research output in sub-Saharan Africa is increasing, but only in a fewcountries P. CHRI S TY POTOT S K Y andWIL L CRESSWELL


Abstract We tested if peer-reviewed conservation research output has increased in sub-Saharan African countries over the last 30 years in response to increased development. We carried out a bibliometric analysis to identify the number of conservation research papers published by national authors of 41 sub-SaharanAfrican countries during 1987–2017,topro- vide an index of national conservation research output. We identified country-specific development factors influencing these totals, using general linear modelling. There were posi- tive relationships between conservation research output and population size, GDP, literacy rate, international tourism re- ceipts and population growth rate, and negative relationships with urbanpopulationand agricultural land cover, in total ex- plaining 77% of variation. Thirty-eight per cent of countries contributed ,30 conservation research papers (of 12,701)in 30 years. Analysis of trends in primary authorship in a ran- domsubsample of 2,374 of these papers showed that primary authorship by sub-SaharanAfrican authors has increased sig- nificantly over time but is now at a lower rate than primary authorship for authors from countries outside the country associated with the search term, usually a European or North American country. Overall, 46% of papers had national pri- mary authors, but 67% of these were South African. The re- sults showthat conservation research output in sub-Saharan Africa overall is increasing but only significantly in a few countries, and is still dominated by non-national scientists, probably as a result of a lack of socio-economic development.


Keywords Capacity building, conservation biology, devel- opment, papers, publication, research capacity, research trends, sub-Saharan Africa


Introduction O


ne of the major responses to global anthropogenic en- vironmental change is scientific research. Since the late


1980s, there has been a substantial push to describe, under- stand and predict impacts on biodiversity and to use this infor- mation to protect threatened species, habitats and ecosystems


P. CHRISTY POTOTSKY andWILL CRESSWELL* (Corresponding author, orcid.org/


0000-0002-4684-7624) Centre of Biological Diversity, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Sir Harold Mitchell Building, Greenside Place, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9TJ, UK. E-mail wrlc@st-and.ac.uk


*Also at: AP Leventis Ornithological Research Institute, University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria


Received 13 September 2019. Revision requested 13 November 2019. Accepted 9 January 2020. First published online 2 December 2020.


(Fazey et al., 2005;O’Connell et al., 2019). In theory, such con- servationresearchshouldserve as achannelof communication for scientists, students, conservation practitioners, local com- munities, non-governmental organizations, and governments to catalyse the action necessary to meet this environmental challenge (Wilson, 2000; Sodhi & Ehrlich, 2010). To attain positive conservation outcomes, individuals, communities and organizations need to acquire a diversity of data, skills and knowledge. Collectively, these elements comprise capacity (O’Connell et al., 2019). Unfortunately, inequalities in terms of research capacity across the conservation community limit our ability to meet conservation needs effectively in the face of the current environmental crisis (Wilson et al., 2016). Previous bibliometric analyses have noted a serious mis-


match between where biodiversity is located and where re- search institutions are based. Although there has been an increase in research output frominstitutions in economically less developed countries over time, the proportion of research carried out by national researchers compared to that in de- veloped countries has not improved and, in some cases, has decreased (e.g. Fazey et al., 2005; Campbell, 2007;Mammides et al., 2016;Wilsonetal., 2016; Cresswell, 2018). A dispropor- tionate amount of conservation research has been conduct- ed by researchers working in developed countries with low biodiversity, resulting in a geographical bias in knowledge (Griffiths & Dos Santos, 2012;Meijaard et al., 2015). This bias may be particularly prevalent in Africa, where the institu- tions that carry out conservation research, such as universities and field research centres, lack the historical, social and eco- nomic contexts that have shaped those in other regions (Bawa et al., 2008). Understanding how in-country conservation re- search capacity is, or is not, developing in this region of high biodiversity and conservation importance is vital, as it is at the level of national government thatmost conservation decisions aremade and represents a country’s ability to generate knowl- edge about their natural resources (Meijaard et al., 2015). Here we examine the degree to which conservation re-


search output, as measured by publication of papers in the peer-reviewed international science literature, has devel- oped in sub-Saharan Africa and the predictors that could in- fluence this. Research publication output is probably limited in sub-Saharan Africa by inadequate teaching resources, sci- entific equipment and infrastructure, leading to a shortage of trained professionals (Kabuye, 2001). Because of these economically-linked limitations, we might expect a strong relationship between positive economic, education and gov- ernance indicators and increased rates of research output, and we would expect those countries in Africa with a higher


This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Oryx, 2021, 55(6), 924–933 © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605320000046


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