Where to publish your research article: Subsidy

The South African government provides an incentive system to encourage research output by funding universities for articles published in accredited journals or peer-reviewed conference proceedings, or publication of books, measured in publishing units.

No differentiation is made between national and international publications providing it appears on one of the accreditation lists for journal articles. Conference proceedings, books and book chapters should be approved for subsidy by a relevant adjudication committee. Subsidy figures fluctuate from year to year, but over the past three years it has been on average around R120,000 per full publication unit. Multiple authorship results in sharing the subsidy.

Universities generally provide concomitant policy and procedures with regard to how incentive funding is spent within institutions. Often, funds are further divided between the faculty and the researcher concerned. Please refer to applicable policy and procedures provided by the Division for Research Development.

Adapted from: Tongai, I. 2013. Incentives for researchers drive up publication output. University World News, July 2013 Issue No:280. Available online: http://www.universityworldnews.com/

Please find information on the Research Output Survey on the Division for Research Development's webpage. A survey is done annually to record the research activities of the previous output year. Only research activities or achievements that are the result of original research are reported . The survey serves two purposes, the first is to  measure research outputs for subsidy purposes  according to the Department of  Higher Education & Training's (DHET) policy while the second is to gather information for the  annual research report. Find here the Notice and Internal Guidelines for submission of research outputs for subsidy as well as for reporting purposes.