Embracing the East African Community’s vision to deliver a “Common Higher Education Area”

In terms of citation quality and footprint, African research is performing very well, although visibility and access to funding remain the top challenges for research institutions in Africa, and the need for presence, visibility and relevance has never been more pressing in order to secure the means for discovering and advancing knowledge.

As one of the fastest-growing regional economic blocs in the world, the East African Community (EAC) has a vision to deliver a “Common Higher Education Area,” bringing together sovereign states to develop compatible, coherent and harmonized systems of higher education. In the last 10 years, research output and influence have increased significantly in East Africa. For example, Uganda delivers one of the region’s most-cited papers drawing solely on “home-grown” research by authors based within the country.

Embracing the EAC’s vision, the Web of Science can provide the means to increase research impact whilst providing valuable information to support the management of funding – and, ultimately, to elevate the position of East African research in the international research community as they strive to establish a research-enabling environment.

Watch this latest video for more on the EAC’s vision and the Web of Science.