Development of a categorization framework for research collaborations: A typology for assessing innovation potential in Nigerian universities

Abstract

This study categorizes research collaborations in Nigerian universities into eight groups (C1 to C8) using data from academic journals. The framework assesses innovation capacity, assuming interdisciplinary collaboration leads to more impactful outcomes. From 274 universities, a sample of 139 was obtained. Results show Nigerian scholars are most active in C2 collaborations (43.30%), involving authors from the same department, followed by C3 (15.67%) between different departments within the same faculty. Single authorship (C1) accounted for 10.62%, interdisciplinary (C4) for 12.20%, cross-university (C5) for 10.45%, university-industry (C6) for 3.87%, university-government (C7) for 2.59%, and international (C8) for 1.30%. The study recommends more interdisciplinary research collaborations to enhance innovative and commercially viable outputs.

Key Words: Research collaborations, research categorization innovation capacity, Nigerian academic journals