Why research funders, institutions and academics need to frame research agendas that are locally responsive

Samuel Laryea (University of the Witwatersrand) considers the contribution of researchers in developing countries to the discourse in Q1 journals. Common themes are evident in both developed and developing regions. However, publications from African countries appear to only partially address prevalent issues in the region, with limited publications that explore local contexts.

Roughly 20% of the papers in top-ranked journals originate from developing countries generally, and roughly 5% originate from African countries specifically. These papers have so far made interesting contributions but relatively little impact in influencing the direction of research agendas and trends in top journals. Researchers in developing countries are likely to generate greater impact in the mainstream literature through studies that are locally responsive from an innovation perspective and globally competitive from a theoretical perspective.

Global landscape of publications

Globally, a look at the 105,000+ papers, published between 2020 and 2024, in 50 Q1 journals (see Appendix 1) indexed by Scimago in the building and construction category shows these have been dominated by contributions from the Global North. The overall focus has been on themes relating to sustainability, technology, and urban planning. The research agendas in the past five years have been driven by 5 main global societal needs and imperatives:

• energy-efficient buildings and low-carbon materials, with a focus on promoting sustainable construction through recycled and eco-friendly materials.
• development of high-performance materials (e.g. ultra-high-performance concrete, composites) and optimising building structures for improved performance in extreme conditions.
• the digitalisation and integration of BIM, AI, and automation technologies to enhance construction efficiency, reduce manual processes, and improve accuracy in project execution.
• resilience of infrastructure to natural disasters and advancing structural health monitoring for ongoing safety and performance assessment.
• energy-saving technologies in buildings and the incorporation of renewable energy sources to reduce environmental impact.

Contributions from the Global South

Conversely, the 20% of publications in top ranked journals from developing countries have focused broadly on six main areas:

• sustainable construction: green building practices, use of sustainable materials, and energy-efficient designs to reduce environmental impact.
• infrastructure development: enhancing transportation, energy, and water infrastructure to support economic and urban growth.
• affordable housing: cost-effective construction methods, alternative materials, and strategies to address housing shortages and improve living conditions.
• disaster resilience: the capacity of buildings and infrastructure to withstand natural hazards such as earthquakes and floods.
• energy: integrating renewable energy sources and energy-efficient systems in built facilities; reduction of fossil fuel use; lowering of energy demand.
• urbanisation and planning: rapid urban growth, slum upgrading, informal settlements, and effective urban planning.

The 5% of publications in top ranked journal from African countries focus broadly on six areas:

• climate change adaptation: creating infrastructure that is resilient to extreme weather events and changing climate conditions specific to African contexts.
• sustainable urban planning: strategies for creating resilient cities with green spaces, sustainable transport, and effective urban policies.
• indigenous materials and traditional building methods: enhancing sustainability and reducing construction costs.
• healthy environments and indoor air quality.
• digitalisation and innovation in the construction sector, with a focus on local adaptations.
• energy and electrification: access to clean energy sources, particularly solar and mini-grid systems, to support both urban and rural development.

The evidence in Appendix 1 shows that developing and African countries have contributed approximately 20% and 5% of papers respectively in leading Q1 journals in the built environment field between 2020 and 2024. There may be different reasons behind this wide gap between the quantity of contributions from developed and developing countries, including availability and types of funding, and differences in institutions and research landscapes.

In summary, there are common themes across both developed and developing regions which more closely align to global societal needs and imperatives, including sustainability, energy and digitalisation which are. However, publications from African countries appear to only partially address prevalent issues in the region, with limited publications exploring local contexts of poor economic environment, funding for infrastructure, technological capacity, conflict and security, politics and corruption.

Transforming research in developing countries into mainstream research agendas

Three main points arise from Appendix 1:

• There is a low number (percentage) of published outputs from Africa in Q1 journals. This reflects a relatively low contribution in leading journals from a quality perspective.
• There is a significant overlap between the research themes in publications from Africa and the developed world. Yet, this does not fully reflect the development characteristics and imperatives in developing countries as defined by the World Bank, indicating that it perhaps partly reflects the view of some researchers in developing countries on the need to align their research with the prevailing research agendas in developed countries and leading journals to enhance the chances of acceptance. It is also possible that the publications from African countries in Q1 journals could be relatively lower if much of this research didn't "fit" well into the international agenda, i.e. research focused on local issues may not be mainstream enough for some Q1 journals.
• The impact (in terms of citations) of papers from developing countries (Africa, in particular) has been relatively low, although it is acknowledged there are other ways to evaluate quality and impact.

The significant overlap between the research themes in publications from developed and developing countries shows a considerable influence of global research agendas, which raises a vital point about local and regional research issues. Research should be locally responsive to the unique contexts of its environment, and globally competitive on a theoretical level, as Professor Adam Habib explains;

"Being world-class requires not the imitation of the foreign, but the conquering of the local, and the theorisation of this to the global. It is the responsiveness to one's contextual specificities that enhances the ability of researchers in developing countries to make unique contributions to the global corpus of knowledge and become globally competitive".

In their bid to align with the global discourse in key journals, some researchers in developing countries simply imitate some of the global research agendas and use this as a basis to propose solutions to local problems. Examples of this can be seen in the areas of sustainability strategies; performance improvement of construction materials; and climate change adaptation approaches. However,

Looking forward, merely outputting more papers will not necessarily generate a greater impact in the mainstream literature. The significant scale of infrastructure provision required to accelerate development in developing countries, and the relatively poor economic environment defined by the World Bank, suggests the need for research funders, institutions and academics to frame research agendas that are locally responsive from an innovation perspective and globally competitive from a theoretical perspective. Such studies are likely to generate more impact and following of international counterparts from developed countries seeking new insights and theories compared to those that merely imitate the research agendas in developed countries without responsiveness to local considerations. The publications from African countries on indigenous materials and traditional building methods, and local adaptations of digitalisation and innovation in the construction sector are positive signs that some shift is occurring which bodes well for elevating the impact of research from developing countries.

Appendix

Q1 Journals in Building & Construction subject category (Scimago) (2020 - 2024)

SN	Journal name	Papers 2024	Papers 2023	Papers 2022	Papers 2021	Papers 2020	TOTAL (2020-2024)
01	Applied Energy	2120	1569	1823	1262	1733	8507
02	Automation in Construction	535	428	550	462	364	2339
03	Building and Environment	873	1030	1130	832	754	4619
04	Building Research and Information	42	82	56	52	60	292
05	Building Simulation	93	143	135	123	97	591
06	Buildings and Cities	23	57	63	53	42	238
07	Cement and Concrete Composites	374	398	445	356	323	1896
08	Cement and Concrete Research	245	231	304	258	244	1282
09	Construction and Building Materials	3139	4133	3607	4042	3576	18497
10	Construction Innovation	78	144	75	50	31	378
11	Construction Management and Economics	46	64	60	58	75	303
12	Developments in the Built Environment	102	189	40	26	31	388
13	Energy	2411	4008	3354	2463	2316	14552
14	Energy and Buildings	677	953	848	822	706	4006
15	Energy and Built Environment	57	95	41	40	40	273
16	Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management	203	464	221	99	196	1183
17	Georisk	59	67	49	23	20	218
18	Indoor Air	42	41	242	180	103	608
19	International Journal of Construction Management	221	327	274	93	76	991
20	International Journal of Refrigeration	245	379	299	397	374	1694
21	Journal of Building Engineering	1143	2694	1949	1634	775	8195
22	Journal of Building Performance Simulation	43	58	48	41	52	242
23	Journal of Composites for Construction	76	89	100	80	106	451
24	Journal of Construction Engineering and Management	172	218	200	250	214	1054
25	Journal of Earthquake Engineering	118	250	358	121	101	948
26	Journal of Information Technology in Construction	42	38	53	56	31	220
27	Materials and Structures	212	181	239	228	146	1006
28	Smart and Sustainable Built Environment	98	117	75	31	50	371
28	Structural Control and Health Monitoring	108	143	278	184	167	880
30	Structural safety	69	66	61	81	72	349
31	Structure and Infrastructure Engineering	132	225	138	106	128	729
32	Structures	998	1987	1248	1192	686	6111
33	Sustainable and resilient infrastructure	59	69	55	22	29	234
34	Thin-Walled Structures	876	1009	788	761	591	4025
35	Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology	423	575	450	452	377	2277
36	Sustainable Structures	8	12	10	10	0	40
37	Underground Space (China)	86	101	74	62	27	350
38	Journal of Road Engineering	21	25	20	4	0	70
39	Journal of Structural Engineering	209	252	308	340	383	1492
40	RILEM Technical Letters	10	14	20	20	20	84
41	Journal of Constructional Steel Research	432	486	540	514	502	2474
42	Journal of Bridge Engineering	107	149	165	152	141	714
43	Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering	197	250	280	238	243	1208
44	Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering	542	640	507	523	506	2718
45	Structural Concrete	338	480	253	326	200	1597
46	Civil Engineering Journal	194	219	192	166	193	964
47	ACI Materials Journal	33	41	120	114	117	425
48	Advances in Structural Engineering	177	189	220	262	253	1101
49	International Journal of Structural Stability and Dynamics	267	424	242	214	224	1371
50	Steel and Composite Structures	119	159	184	220	213	895
	TOTAL (Q1 journals)	18894	25962	22791	20095	17708	105450

Notes
1. The data in this Table is limited to Q1 journals in the Building and Construction subject category (Scimago).
2. Developing countries are defined here as the World Bank Country and Lending Groups low-income (26 countries), lower-middle income (51 countries), and upper-middle income (54 countries) countries i.e.. 131 developing countries in total, forming 67% of the total number of countries in the World (195 countries).
3. 2024 publications count is up to publications as of 12 September 2024.
4. In terms of the methodology used to estimate the contribution from developing and African countries, a manual count was one in 15% of the journals and then this was used to generate an estimate of 20% and 5% respectively.
5. The journals with zero (0) in the year 2020 were first published in 2021, hence the reason for no publication records in the year 2020.