In his thought-provoking article, African Professors Must Stop Counting Publications — And Start Building Nations, Isaac Yae Asiedu raises an urgent and emotionally compelling concern about Africa’s development paradox: a continent rich in intellectual capital, yet persistently struggling to translate knowledge into broad-based socio-economic transformation.
His intervention rightly challenges African universities to interrogate their purpose and to reconnect scholarship with the everyday realities and developmental needs of African societies.
This response engages Asiedu’s argument in the same spirit of urgency and commitment to Africa’s progress, while offering a complementary and clarifying perspective.
It contends that the core challenge confronting African higher education is not an excess of academic publishing, but a systemic disconnect between research, innovation, industry, and policy.
Publishing and nation-building are not mutually exclusive pursuits; when properly aligned, they are mutually reinforcing pillars of sustainable development.
The debate, therefore, should not be framed as publish versus build, but rather as publish and build — a reframing that offers a more realistic and impactful pathway for transforming African universities into engines of national development.
Public discourse on development often suffers from emotionally charged reactions that prioritise sweeping generalisations over careful, stable reasoning.
In such moments, complex institutional challenges are simplified, and responsibility is disproportionately assigned to a single group.
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This tendency is particularly evident in debates surrounding the role of African professors in development, where academic publishing is sometimes portrayed as an indulgence detached from real societal needs.
Yet the role of a professor is neither ambiguous nor incidental.
Professors are entrusted with main core responsibilities: teaching, mentoring, and research.
Through teaching, they develop skilled human capital; through mentoring, they shape future leaders, innovators, and critical thinkers; and through research, they generate knowledge, evidence, and solutions to pressing societal problems.
These functions are not peripheral to development but they are foundational to it.
Research, in particular, does not exist in isolation.
It is the intellectual infrastructure upon which innovation, policy formulation, and industrial growth are built.
Rigorous research identifies problems, tests solutions, refines methodologies, and produces evidence capable of informing practice.
However, transforming research findings into marketable products, scalable industries, or national programmes is not the sole responsibility of professors.
That task belongs to a broader development ecosystem comprising scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, technologists, investors, policymakers, and industry leaders.
Expecting professors to single-handedly move from discovery to commercialization reflects a misunderstanding of how societies advance.
No nation has developed by collapsing all responsibilities into one profession.
Progress has consistently emerged through specialisation, coordination, and collaboration among diverse actors, each contributing according to their expertise.
African professors, therefore, are not obstacles to development; they are its intellectual backbone.
Their research informs innovation, their classrooms produce skilled professionals, and their mentorship cultivates ethical leadership and critical inquiry.
Without strong academic foundations, innovation becomes shallow, unsustainable, and detached from evidence.
The real challenge Africa faces is not a crisis of “publish or perish,” but a failure of translation — a weak interface between research outputs and the industrial, policy, and commercial systems required to absorb and implement them.
Publications are not the enemy of development, but they are the currency of global knowledge, the basis of academic credibility, and the gateway to research funding, international collaboration, and technological transfer.
Without peer-reviewed research and publication, inventions lack validation, scalability, and international legitimacy.
No serious advancement in medicine, engineering, agriculture, or technology reaches maturity without passing through the discipline of rigorous research and scholarly scrutiny.
Moreover, African professors operate within a global academic ecosystem.
Publishing enables them to secure grants, build transnational partnerships, access cutting-edge knowledge, and equip laboratories and innovation hubs.
Asking African scholars to abandon publishing is effectively asking them to disengage from the global knowledge economy — an economy that Africa must actively shape and influence, not withdraw from.
The more productive question, therefore, is not whether to publish or invent, but how to publish with purpose.
Research can and should be problem-driven, locally grounded, and innovation-oriented.
A peer-reviewed paper on renewable energy, irrigation systems, disease diagnostics, or public health interventions is not a distraction from development; it is often the first step toward prototypes, patents, policy reforms, and scalable solutions.
Equally important, universities cannot be expected to replace industries.
Professors teach, research, mentor, and generate knowledge; industries manufacture, scale, and distribute; governments regulate, procure, and institutionalise solutions.
Expecting academics alone to build factories or commercial pipelines misunderstands their mandate.
What Africa urgently needs is stronger university–industry–government collaboration, where published research feeds directly into production systems, entrepreneurial ventures, and public policy.
Redefining academic success is indeed necessary, but this redefinition must be additive, not subtractive.
Publications, patents, startups, policy influence, and community impact should coexist within a holistic evaluation framework.
Removing publications from the equation risks lowering academic rigour and isolating African scholarship from global standards.
Africa does not need fewer thinkers; it needs stronger bridges between thinking and doing.
In conclusion, Africa’s development challenge will not be solved by diminishing scholarship, but by strengthening the ecosystems that convert knowledge into impact.
When research, innovation, policy, and industry move in concert, publications become catalysts for nation-building rather than obstacles to it.
The future of African development lies not in forcing professors to choose between writing papers and building nations, but in enabling them to do both — because when properly aligned, one reinforces the other.
Publishing with purpose, building with evidence, and collaborating across sectors is the most credible path toward transforming African universities into true engines of sustainable development.
*Clever Marisa (Prof) is a social scientist and public health practitioner. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of any affiliated institution or organisation.
