Mabuka remembers a fellow researcher who was doing “excellent work” in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, but because he was not collaborating with “international people,” ended up publishing his work in a “low-impact” journal in East Africa
Should African scientists fight to participate in a global academic system stacked against them or do away with it entirely? Jenn Mabuka has “made it” as a scientist. A Kenyan immunologist who was published in “PLoS Pathogens” — one of the most prestigious journals in her field, but she says she got lucky. “All my pieces are published in very high-impact journals. I never had any problem [getting published], but that in itself is the problem because I was working with Americans.” That’s the thing: to succeed as an African scientist, often first you need to get out of Africa. On addressing obstacles of publication in Africa, the “Scientific African,” a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary science journal rolled out by NEF in partnership with Elsevier, aims to carve out a space for rigorous, exemplary work from African researchers in the apex of the science world. Read more
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