Research productivity at public universities: Evidence from Morocco

Abstract

The main objective of our article is to analyze research productivity at Moroccan public universities. This study contributes to the rare literature that exists about African research productivity in general and research at Moroccan public universities especially.

Research production of Moroccan public universities in 2018 represents 85.26 % of total Moroccan scientific production which makes this study important.

Our study focuses on the period 2008 to 2018, we use the most recent available data and we include all Moroccan public universities. We use bibliometrics indicators in order to evaluate research at Moroccan public universities.

We use the number of publications per professor to analyze professor productivity and the number of citations to measures how a paper has contributed to research and science, those indicators have some imperfections but are generally accepted by the scientific community.

The results of our study indicate that research productivity at Moroccan public universities is low, but it’s slightly improving over the years.

The citation of published Moroccan papers is improving, and the articles published in the 100 best Scopus journals are better citer than those published by comparable countries like Algeria and Tunisia, which means that Moroccan research has a potential for development.

The teaching pressure, the funding research system, and the promotion of the human resource policy can be an explanation. To improve research productivity of Moroccan public universities, we propose some recommendations like the reform of the promotion system, the introduction of financial and non-financial initiatives and the simplification of the funding circuit of research projects and publications.

JEL Classification:  H52, I23, I28

Paper type: Empirical research