Neuroscience research in Africa, state of the art, challenges and solutions

Abstract

Nowadays, behind the most developed and modern societies are the most advanced research centres. Indeed, one of the main pillars of a society’s development is scientific research. More specifically, medical research. In the world, Africa is a huge continent made up of developing countries. The research field is growing, especially the medical one. In order to makeresearch, collaboration is a necessity. It may be between different fields, different cities or even different countries, but it always has the same goal: to allow the research to be carried out. The goal of our work is to show how the research and the collaboration in neuroscience takes place in Africa, and how it is possible to improve it. Our work has been built on two axes: On the one hand, we showed the current status of the research and collaboration in Africa. We made a literature review, using: Two decades of neuroscience publication trends in Africa, Neuroscience research in Africa: Current status. Showing the medical research status in Africa between 2003 and 2013, the publications in African countries between 1996 and 2017, and the collaboration between different fields between 1996 and 2017. One the other hand, we made a survey to analysethe difficulties and limitations of medical research in Africa, based on its health professionals experiences. Indeed, research is being undertaken, the results are not as brilliant as those obtained in other countries. And in order to find this limitant factor, we made up a questionnaire which was sent to different neuroscientists in Africa. In our Cadi Ayyad University, we found upto 10th October 2021: 12956 published documents in the whole institution, and 10292 Documents in affiliated institutions. The first domain of research field was dominated by physics & astronomy (1141: 14.5%), followed by engineering (2077: 11.6%), followed by engineering (2077: 11.6%), then mathematics (1857: 10.4%), Medicine came in 9th position (1011: 5.7%), and few neuroscience (only with 118 papers).