Who is telling the story? A systematic review of authorship for infectious disease research conducted in Africa, 1980–2016

What is it about?

Summary Box

What is already known?
·	Africa fares very poorly regarding publications in research and innovation, where international collaboration for research conducted in Africa tends to underrepresent African researchers yet secures key authorship for non-African researchers. 
·	Authorship representation and positioning provide one method of measuring African participation and leadership in research. 

What are the new findings?
·	Our study suggests that despite their significant contribution, African authors are highly underrepresented as first and last authors in collaborative infectious disease research conducted within the African continent. 
·	Most of African first and last authors had affiliations in Anglophone countries.

What does it imply?
·	This calls for capacity building and equitable partnership between African countries and western nations for scientific research and publication.
·	There is a need for more efforts to include French speaking African researchers in research collaborations and a need for an active valorization of research studies published in French-written journals. 


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