Academics today, around the world, are confined by the way their research output is measured. Indicators that count the number of times their work is cited by other academics, and the relative prestige of journals that publish their papers, determine everything: from career development to research funding.
What does this international system mean for African scholars like ourselves? Our work has found that metrics for measuring excellence are instead acting as a disadvantage for academics who seek to generate knowledge relevant for their communities.
The higher the traditional indicators like citation counts and impact factors are for African scholars, the lower their score for local relevance and community impact. The globally accepted metrics punish what matters most, while blocking African scholars' career progress.
Our findings show that there's a need for a philosophical and practical alternative to the existing system. Ngotho's work towards a PhD in educational management offers one: an assessment framework built on the African ethical principle of ubuntu - "a person is a person through others". The PhD work suggests a practical, quantifiable assessment tool to create an ubuntu score for academic output.
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Taking an academic's measure
The doctoral study first looked at the evaluation mechanisms being used across all African Research Universities Alliance member universities.
It found that the indicators used as the basis for academic assessment across the globe appear objective in design, but they are not. They foster a deep bias against African scholarship.
- The h-index measures both publication productivity and citation impact. This inherently disadvantages collaborative scholarship, particularly community-based work, which is essential for social transformation. Our research indicates that 73% of faculty who are engaged in participatory research have h-indices that fail to reflect their true impact. The index has other flaws: it can be artificially inflated through self-citations, and its value changes depending on which database calculates it.
- Journal impact factors favour journals from the global north. Western Europe and North America dominate academic publishing, contributing 74% of indexed public health journals. Africa represents just 2%. This forces scholars to bypass excellent regional journals that their peers and policymakers actually read. In effect, it silences locally important conversations.
- Citation counts reinforce negative tendencies against African scholarship in fields like public health and agricultural development. The constant pressure for high publication counts values quantity over quality. According to the PhD research, 61% of African faculty report excessive pressure to publish, leaving insufficient time for the deep contextual analysis that our communities need.
- Even altmetrics, designed to track broader societal impact, are calibrated for global north social media ecosystems. They typically ignore how knowledge is transmitted in African contexts, for example through community radio programmes, speaking and local workshops. This means promotion committees, focused on social media mentions and blog citations, overlook how African academics actually engage with their communities.
Many African scholars suffer from geographical bias before their work is even read. As the study contends, abstracts have even been rejected if reviewers have low regard for the authors' institution or country of origin.
Ubuntu: an African alternative
The PhD thesis research provides a philosophical and practical alternative to this dysfunctional system. It's an assessment framework founded on the African ethical principle of ubuntu, "I am because we are", which means that any individual's identity is fundamentally connected to collective wellbeing.
An "ubuntu score" allows for traditional measurement, complemented or surpassed by a collaborative impact quotient. It measures co-creation of knowledge with communities, interdisciplinary teamwork, custodian partnerships, and similar cooperative efforts in forming indigenous knowledge. Ubuntu metrics invert assessment from individual prestige to collective wellbeing, placing value on:
- analytics addressing African developmental challenges
- scholarship published in African languages
- research disseminated in regionally relevant venues like the African press.
From theory to practice: early successes
Preliminary trials carried out in Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and the University of Nairobi in Kenya revealed that 68% of faculty disadvantaged by the traditional journal impact factor rated highly on the ubuntu-based evaluation, which measured their contribution to society.
Pilot stakeholder panels were conducted at the University of Pretoria (South Africa) and echoed this finding. High-impact scholars who were overlooked by promotion committees wedded to citation counts were identified by community residents. Their excellence, embedded and serving their communities, was erased by conventional metrics.
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This is in line with the growing realisation that African universities must shift from being research institutions to innovation engines.
The issue is far bigger than just creating new measures; it involves an entire transformation of academia's culture.
Ranking systems should come from the African universities themselves. Encouraging citations of relevant articles from one's region could build up the presence and influence of African publications.
Beyond alternative metrics, a total recomposition of academic values is what ubuntu-style assessment buys into. It does not ask "How visible is this scholar to the world?" but "How has this scholar's work strengthened their community?" It measures not citations in far-away journals but solutions in local contexts.
Eutychus Ngotho Gichuru, PhD Candidate in Educational Management, Makerere University
Archangel Byaruhanga Rukooko, Associate Professor (Philosophy ), Makerere University
