South African Science: Signs of Progress

摘要

The nation of South Africa, after more than a decade of comparative stasis in terms of research output, has seen its annual yield of papers rise discernibly in recent years. Concurrently, the nation's citation impact in main fields of science has risen considerably compared to its performance as gauged through the early 1990s.rnIt's been 15 years since Science Watch examined the state of research in South Africa (6[3]: 1-2, March 1995). At that time, the nation had only recently emerged from the pariah status occasioned by the racial policies of apartheid. As Science Watch noted at the time, South Africa's scientific profile appeared to reflect a high cost of isolation from the world community, as evinced by a low representation of published papers and low citation impact compared to the world.