Paper short abstract:

This work focused on the causes of poor visibility of African research/researchers internationally. The findings from southern Nigeria traced this challenge to lack of funding by African leaders, scarcity of indigenous African journals internationally, difficulty in publishing in renowned journals.

Paper long abstract:

The African researcher faced great difficulties in accessing reputable international academic works as well as in writing an academic paper that meets international standards required for publication in highly reputable journals. This has made African researchers and their researches increasingly less visible to the international academic world. The main purpose of this study is to find the causative factors for the poor visibility of African research/researchers internationally. A sample size of 400 researchers was used for this study through random selection of 20 researchers per a tertiary institution for twenty (20) tertiary institutions. The instrument: Causes of poor visibility of African researchers and their works internationally scale was used for data collection. It was found to be valid and reliable. The resulting data was analysed using mean and standard deviation. The research traced the poor visibility of African research/researchers to the relative high cost of publication in journals; lack of updated information on African countries; paucity of African journals in the libraries of developed countries; and African leaders lack interest in collection/keeping of accurate data on national issues and funding of research works. The identified causes of poor visibility of African researchers/research at international levels have to be eradicated if their visibility level must improve. The leaders of African countries and other stakeholders in research works should make research easier, interesting and more affordable to the African researchers.