The state of the humanities and social sciences in South Africa today: Statistical and bibliometric

1
The state of the humanities and social sciences
in South Africa today Statistical and
bibliometric evidence

• Johann Mouton
• Assaf Humanities Project
• 17 November 2008

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Table of contents

• Trends in article output
• Contribution to the SA knowledgebase
• Localized publication culture
• International visibility
• Demographic trends
• Doctoral production
• The burden of supervision
• The robustness of the human capital base
• Concluding observations

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Trends in journal article output
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Article output

• Absolute article output in most fields of the
  Humanities and Social Sciences have pretty much
  remained consistent over the past 15 years. Two
  exceptions are Law (which has seen a significant
  decline) and Religion (a significant increase).

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Article output by SSH field
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Shifts in subfields of the social sciences (1990
2004)
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Shifts in subfields of the humanities (1990
2004)
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Contribution to the SA knowledgebase
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Contribution to the SA knowledgebase

• The relative contribution of the Humanities and
  Social Sciences to the national knowledgebase has
  remained very stable over the past 15 years.
  Research in these fields continue to constitute
  approximately 40 of all output in accredited
  journals.

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SSH contribution to the SA Knowledgebase(article
output in all accredited journals)
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Localized publication culture
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Localized publication culture

• Scholars in SSH continue to publish predominantly
  in local, SA journals. Three quarters of all
  articles in these fields consistently appear in
  local (mostly non-ISI) journals. This trend,
  despite attempts to encourage more foreign
  publishing, has remained unchanged for 15 years.
  It is also a near mirror image of the situation
  w.r.t. the natural and health sciences (however
  a substantive proportion (nearly 40) of these
  articles appear in local ISI-indexed journals)

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Broad scientific field distribution of South
African article output (article output in
ISI-journals)
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Broad scientific field distribution of South
African article output (article output in
non-ISI-journals)
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International visibility
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Acceptable level of international visibility

• When compared to 10 other similar science
  systems, South African authored articles in
  ISI-journals compare reasonably favourably in
  terms of international visibility or recognition
  (as measured in terms of citation rates).
• Social science articles were ranked 3rd behind
  Singapore and Brazil in terms of field-normalized
  citation rates.
• Humanities articles were ranked 4th behind
  Argentina, Portugal and Egypt.

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CWTS bibliometric indicators for South Africa and
10 benchmarking countries in Social Sciences,
1990-2005
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CWTS bibliometric indicators for South Africa and
10 benchmarking countries in Humanities,
1990-2005
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Demographic trends
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Demographic trends

• Regenerating the national researcher work force
  has been recognized as a high priority since
  CREST published the demographic analyses of the
  scientific work force in 2002. In general terms
  the trends remain consistent Female
  representation in article authorship continues to
  improve, Black representation in scientific
  authorship has also improved across most fields
  of sciences with significant proportions in the
  social sciences and especially Education. But the
  aging of the publishing workforce continues to be
  a major concern this is also true for the
  social sciences and humanities.

2
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Gender and race demographics for SSH
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Age trends by SSH subfield
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Doctoral production
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Low levels of doctoral production

• Total annual production of doctoral
  dissertations in all fields has been growing
  steadily but slowly (at an average annual rate of
  3.9). Our system produces about 0.05 SET
  doctorates per 1000 of the population (more
  specifically the 25 34 age group and 0.12 for
  the 35-44 age group). This compares very
  unfavourably with the EU average of 0.42 per
  1000. As far as SSH are concerned, the humanities
  have seen a decline in doctoral graduates over
  the past five years, whereas the social sciences
  have seen a significant increase.

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Headcount of first enrolments by type of
postgraduate qualification, 2000 to 2005
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Headcount of Doctoral first enrolments by broad
field, 2000 to 2005
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Headcount of Masters first enrolments by broad
field, 2000 to 2005
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Headcount of graduates by type of postgraduate
qualification, 2000 to 2005
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Headcount of Doctoral graduates by broad field,
2000 to 2005
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Time (in years) to degree completion of Masters
and Doctoral students by broad field, 2000 and
2005
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The burden of supervision
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Academic staff at SA Universities (2000 2005)
Proportions of staff with PhDs and Masters
degrees
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Burden of supervision by field (Masters)
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Burden of supervision by field (Doctorate)
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The robustness of the human capital base
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Depth of the human base and productivity by field
(1990 2004)
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Human capital strength
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PhD output and average annual growth (1990 2004)
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Concluding observations
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Policies and regulatory regimes

• SSH Journals
• There is a definite perception that there are too
  many SSH journals in South Africa for the size of
  the science system. Based on this, some observers
  have suggested that the quality of many of these
  might be suspect and that we cannot sustain these
  numbers AND ensure high quality
• The DoE and scholarly books
• CREST submitted its report on the state of
  scholarly books in South Africa. Our findings
  point to various inhibiting factors in scholarly
  publishing in the country and make
  recommendations for strengthening the system as
  well as refining the DoE subsidy system on this
  point.
• The DST and the social sciences and humanities
• The recently released 10 year strategic plan of
  the DST included as one of its FIVE grand
  clusters or thrusts human and social
  dynamics. But what conception underpins this
  prioritization?

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Trends in scientific output (1987 2006)
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Institutional contexts

• The current regime of over-regulation and even
  micro-management of (social) research in this
  country is worrisome. It is now increasingly
  recognized that the regulations and rules of
  various systems (most notably the DoE subsidy
  system and the NRF rating system) have led
  scholars to engage in various forms of
  non-virtuous behaviour. Fragmentation and
  re-packaging of journal articles, focus on
  quantity rather than quality, a declining
  interest in producing books and monographs,
  chasing ratings and so on are all indicators of
  the negative effects of the regulatory regimes
  that shape our research system. There will (have
  to) be a much-needed shift to concerns about
  quality and integrity in SSH rather than output
  and efficiency. At the moment, the latter
  predominates the new managerialism that pervades
  our institutions of higher learning, demands
  volume, numbers, throughputs and measurable
  performance in order to improve rankings and
  increase competitive advantage.

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On epistemic practices

• New spaces for the SSH have opened up and will
  continue to do so Mode 2 production of
  knowledge is alive and well in South Africa in
  the form of social research consultancies
  (especially ME, organizational development,
  strategic management, market research, policy
  studies)! But the view of social science and
  humanities scholarship held in government circles
  is still essentially instrumentalist (cf. the DST
  5-year strategic plan as well as the mission
  drift demonstrated by the HSRC). SSH scholarship
  is appreciated, not for its intrinsic epistemic
  or intellectual value, but because it
  complements, augments, adds value to scientific
  and technological endeavours (e.g. social aspects
  of technology debates, ethics in business
  debates, socio-ethical aspects of health
  phenomena)

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The key challenges

• Broadening the human capital base in the
  humanities and social sciences both for the
  production and reproduction of human knowledge
• Encouraging the further internationalisation of
  South African SSH as well as addressing continued
  localization in scholarly journal publishing
• Counteracting increasing instrumentalisation of
  SSH and advocating for intrinsic value for SSH
  scholarship
• Protecting quality of SSH scholarship at all
  levels theses, journal articles, etc.

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• Thank you