Transcript Content Divide: Africa and the Global Knowledge Footprint Daniel Gelaw Alemneh University of North Texas, Digital Libraries Services [email protected].

Content Divide: Africa and the
Global Knowledge Footprint
Daniel Gelaw Alemneh
University of North Texas, Digital Libraries Services
[email protected]
Content Divide
• Global knowledge production
• Scientific and innovation capabilities
• The role of higher education vis-à-vis
government and private sector partnership
• National and regional research and education
networks
• Gross expenditure on R&D and research
performance
Gross Expenditure on R&D and
Research Performance
Gross Expenditure on R&D
• Research and Development Activity in
Developing Countries
– R&D Importance for development
• R &d Expenditure
– National
– Specific Fields
• Patterns in R & D workforce Mobility
– Tracking the flows of Mobile Students
• Looking Ahead
Gross Expenditure on R&D and
Research Performance
• Abbreviations:
– GERD: Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D
– GDP: Gross Domestic Product
– NEPAD: New Partnership for Africa’s
Development
– OECD: Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development
Gross Expenditure on R&D and
Research Performance
• World: Africa; America; Asia; Europe; Oceania.
• Developed countries : North America; Europe; Japan; Australia and New
Zealand.
• Developing countries:-
Africa; Latin America and the Caribbean; Asia excluding
Japan; Oceania excluding Australia and New Zealand.
• Least developed countries: Afghanistan; Angola; Bangladesh; Benin; Bhutan;
Burkina Faso; Burundi; Cambodia; Central African Republic; Chad; Comoros; Democratic
Republic of the Congo; Djibouti; Equatorial Guinea; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Gambia; Guinea;
Guinea-Bissau; Haiti; Kiribati; Lao People's Democratic Republic; Lesotho; Liberia;
Madagascar; Malawi; Mali; Mauritania; Mozambique; Myanmar; Nepal; Niger; Rwanda;
Samoa; Sao Tome and Principe; Senegal; Sierra Leone; Solomon Islands; Somalia; Sudan;
Timor-Leste; Togo; Tuvalu; Uganda; United Republic of Tanzania; Vanuatu; Yemen;
Zambia.
Infrastructure & Research Performance
• Several indexes exist to measure the performance of
nations connectivity and broadband penetration:
– The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Digital
Opportunity Index (DOI)
– The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) E-readiness rankings
• Based on infrastructure and skills & usage as
important indicators for connectivity, the recent
connectivity scorecard considered 50 countries
• Botswana, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and
Tunisia are selected from Africa.
Infrastructure & Research Performance
Infrastructure & Research Performance
• Digital divide in content network is more
severe compared to the physical network.
• The contribution of African universities to the
global scientific knowledge base is very small.
– A search of African authors and researchers in the
ISI web of knowledge database (or using anyone of
the analytics tools there) reveals that very rarely you
find works out of Africa.
Research Performance
• Only 31 countries in the world account for more
than 98% of the world’s highly cited papers, of
which south Africa is the only country from
Africa in the 31 countries group.
• The world's remaining 162 countries contributed
less than 2% in total.
Global Knowledge Production
Continent
S&T Journals
% of Titles
Patents Filed
% of Patents
Africa
54
0.64
438
0.24
Asia
968
11.28
70,500
38.76
Europe
4,134
48.55
56,134
30.86
Oceania
175
2.08
2,065
1.13
North America
2,966
35.2
51,519
28.32
South America
173
2.26
1,205
0.66
8470
181861
Visitors per minute for News Traffic (Consumption)
Gross expenditure on R&D and
Research Performance
Regional totals for R&D Expenditure (GERD) and Researchers, 2002, 2007 and 2009
GERD
(in billions PPP$)
World
Developed countries
Developing countries (excl. least developed
Least developed countries
Americas
North America
Latin America and the Caribbean
Europe
European Union
Commonwealth of Independent States in Europe
Central, Eastern and Other Europe
Africa
South Africa
Other Sub-Saharan countries (excl. South Africa)
Arab States in Africa
Asia
Japan
China
Israel
India
Commonwealth of Independent States in Asia
Newly Industrialised Economies in Asia
Arab States in Asia
Other in Asia (excl. Japan, China, India, Israel)
Oceania
2002
787.7
650.0
136.4
1.3
319.2
297.2
22.0
236.4
205.7
16.9
13.7
7.0
2.3
1.9
2.5
214.0
108.2
39.2
7.1
13.3
0.5
39.7
1.2
4.8
11.2
-1
2007
1,155.4
882.9
270.7
1.8
433.0
398.6
34.4
324.4
271.3
30.6
22.5
10.8
4.4
2.9
3.5
367.9
147.8
102.4
9.1
24.3
0.8
71.3
1.7
10.6
19.2
% world
GERD
2009
1,276.9
931.5
343.3
2.1
457.5
417.5
40.0
363.4
300.3
37.0
26.1
11.8
4.7
3.4
3.7
421.8
137.1
154.1
8.8
…
1.0
78.7
2.3
11.0
22.4
-1
2002
100.0%
82.5%
17.3%
0.2%
40.5%
37.7%
2.8%
30.0%
26.1%
2.1%
1.7%
0.9%
0.3%
0.2%
0.3%
27.2%
13.7%
5.0%
0.9%
1.7%
0.1%
5.0%
0.1%
0.6%
1.4%
e
2007
100.0%
76.4%
23.4%
0.2%
37.5%
34.5%
3.0%
28.1%
23.5%
2.6%
1.9%
0.9%
0.4%
0.3%
0.3%
31.8%
12.8%
8.9%
0.8%
2.1%
0.1%
6.2%
0.1%
0.9%
1.7%
2009
100.0%
72.9%
26.9%
0.2%
35.8%
32.7%
3.1%
28.5%
23.5%
2.9%
2.0%
0.9%
0.4%
0.3%
0.3%
33.0%
10.7%
12.1%
0.7%
…
0.1%
6.2%
0.2%
0.9%
1.8%
e
Gross expenditure on R&D and
Research Performance
Other groupings
Other groupings
Arab States all
Commonwealth of Independent States all
OECD
European Free Trade Association
Sub-Saharan Africa (incl. South Africa)
Other in Asia (incl. Japan, China, India, Israel)
GERD (In Billions ppp$)
2002
2007
2009
3.7
17.4
668.3
9.7
4.4
172.6
5.1
31.4
912.1
14.3
7.4
294.2
6.1
38.0
959.3
15.7
8.1
339.8
2002
0.5%
2.2%
84.8%
1.2%
0.6%
21.9%
% World GERD
2007
2009
0.4%
2.7%
78.9%
1.2%
0.6%
25.5%
0.5%
3.0%
75.1%
1.2%
0.6%
26.6%
Expansion in Higher Education
• There has been a great expansion in higher
education enrolment across the world over 170
million students participated in higher education,
which is a five-fold increase since 1970 and a
three-fold increase since 1980.
• One in five of the world’s international students
are from either China or India, with more than
700,000 tertiary-level students enrolled in a
higher education system outside their home
country.
Patterns in Higher Education
• A growing trend is also seen in cross-border
higher education, which is characterized by the
movement of :
– People: (students, professors, scholars, researchers,
experts, and consultants)
– Programs: (course, academic programs, and degrees)
– Providers: (institutions, consortia, and companies
across national borders)
Patterns in R & D workforce
Mobility
Patterns in R & D Workforce Mobility
• The Southern African Development Community
(SADC) has the highest outbound mobility ration
worldwide (6%).
• However, unlike their African counterparts
pursuing tertiary education in Europe and North
America, nearly one-half of SADC mobile students
are choosing to study in South Africa.
• Social science, business, and law are the most
popular disciplines amongst mobile students from
the region.
Patterns in R & D workforce
Mobility
Selected Countries
Selected countries
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
Cuba
Egypt
France
Germany
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Mexico
Republic of Korea
Russian Federation
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States of America
GERD (In Billions ppp$)
2002
2007
2009
1.2
13.0
19.1
…
0.5
38.2
56.7
2.8
4.2
22.5
14.6
3.0
30.6
277.1
-2
2.7
20.3
24.1
…
1.0
44.0
74.1
4.7
5.7
40.7
26.6
7.1
38.8
373.2
b
-1
b
3.5
23.7
24.9
…
1.0
47.9
84.0
6.4
6.1
43.9
33.5
8.7
40.6
398.2
2002
-1
-1
-1
0.1%
1.7%
2.4%
…
0.1%
4.8%
7.2%
0.3%
0.5%
2.9%
1.8%
0.4%
3.9%
35.2%
% World GERD
2007
2009
e
0.2%
1.8%
2.1%
…
0.1%
3.8%
6.4%
0.5%
0.5%
3.5%
2.3%
0.6%
3.4%
32.3%
e
0.3%
1.9%
2.0%
…
0.1%
3.8%
6.6%
0.5%
0.5%
3.5%
2.6%
0.7%
3.2%
30.6%
e
e
e
Challenges
• Multi-disciplinary (inter-disciplinary)
– Grand challenges at various (intersection) disciplines
• Multi-sector (local to international)
– Academic, government, commercial not-for profit
• Multi-formats (multi-scale)
– Format diversity, big and small data aggregation
• Multi-lingual (semantic & meanings)
– Temporal variation, different units and scales of
measurement
Opportunity
• Increased availability of interoperable Open
Access contents and repositories
– Help to integrate, aggregate and enhance access to
diverse digital contents
• Standards and common practices
– Support re-use, interoperability, and the linkage of
local systems into global networks
• The current infrastructure development
– Help to reduce the information poverty in developing
countries
Summary
• There are several initiatives underway:
– NEPAD: New Partnership for Africa’s Development
– AGORA: Access to Online Global Research in Agriculture
– HINARI: Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative
– OARE: Online Access Research in the Environment
• What should be the role of Information Scientists?
– What can the various scientific communities do?
Thanks!
[email protected]