A meta-analysis study of the relationship between research and economic development in selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa

This study sought to determine the bidirectional relationship between research output and impact and economic development in selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Data was extracted from the African Development Indicators and the Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science citation indexes. A Pearson correlation and a regression analysis were performed to determine the relationships between the variables, as well as the influence of the bibliometrics indicators on the economic development indicators and vice versa. Results revealed high and significant correlation values between some research indicators (i.e. number of research articles, citations, and H-index) and some economic development (i.e. GDP(cur) and GNI) at p < 0.01. A mixture of weak, moderate and strong relationships was witnessed between research and economic development. The study further found that the number of articles contributed the most to, and therefore could be a factor affecting economic development, followed by the number of citations. A reverse analysis whereby the economic indicators were assessed to determine their influence on research indicated that the indicators had some influence on the number of articles and citations with the GDP(cur) and the GNI having statistically significant contribution in sub-Saharan Africa. The correlation and regression analyses of the two sets of indicators in selected countries, too, revealed strong and/or very strong relationships. The paper concludes that both the quantity (volume of research) and quality (or impact) of research are essential for economic development while research output and citation impact depend on economic development in not only individual countries but also in sub-Saharan Africa, as a whole. However, normalized indicators represented by the average citations per paper (N-ac) as well as CPI and GDP(cap) produced very low and mostly statistically insignificant coefficients implying weak bidirectional relationships between research and economic development in some cases.