South Africa plans research subsidy curbs after universities report questionable publication claims

South Africa is preparing to tighten its university research funding rules after identifying practices that officials say are undermining the integrity of a government subsidy scheme designed to encourage academic research.

The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) has proposed a series of measures to address excessive publication claims, questionable publishing practices and the misuse of institutional affiliations. The proposals follow a review of the department’s publication output subsidy system, which allocates funding to public universities according to eligible research publications and postgraduate research graduates.

In a communiqué dated Oct 9 Higher Education and Training Minister Buti Manamela said the department had found sufficient evidence of misuse to warrant intervention. The measures are being considered for implementation from May 2027, when the department receives and evaluates universities’ submissions for research outputs.

The proposals include limiting the number of publications an individual author can claim for subsidy, excluding publications in predatory journals and certain self-published books, and introducing stricter conditions for postgraduate students and visiting researchers.

How South Africa’s research subsidy system works

South Africa’s publication output subsidy system is governed by the DHET’s Research Outputs Policy of 2015. It is intended to encourage research productivity at public higher education institutions while maintaining standards of scholarly quality.

Universities submit claims for eligible research outputs, including journal articles, books, book chapters and published conference proceedings. The department evaluates the submissions and allocates research output units that contribute to institutional funding. It also supports universities through funding linked to research master’s and doctoral graduates.

The research output component received an allocation of ZAR 5.8 billion (approximately US$350 million) in the 2025/26 funding period. The value of an individual publication unit fluctuates annually according to the total number of units claimed and currently stands at about ZAR 130,000.

Different publication types attract different numbers of units. A scholarly book can qualify for up to 10 units, while the allocation for a multi-author study may represent only a fraction of a unit.

The system is administered through claims submitted by universities on behalf of their researchers. Institutions receive the funding and determine how it is allocated internally, including whether any portion is passed on to individual academics.

The department’s concern is that the financial incentives attached to publication output can encourage behaviour that prioritises the number of publications over their quality and academic contribution.

Publication caps proposed to curb excessive claims

One of the principal proposals is to introduce a limit on the number of journal publications an individual author can submit for subsidy in a single year.

The department’s communiqué says some authors have been submitting tens of journal publications annually, with excessive output becoming a recurring concern. The proposed cap is intended to address what the department describes as hyper-publication.

The exact ceiling has not yet been finalised. The department plans to discuss indicative limits with universities at a consultative forum later in 2026, taking into account differences in authorship and publication practices across academic disciplines.

The department intends to monitor submissions for 2026 publications received in May 2027. More rigorous application of the caps is expected to cover publications produced in 2027 and reported in 2028.

Reporting for Business Day, journalist Tamar Kahn cited an example provided by Johan Mouton, director of the Centre of Excellence for Scientometrics and Science, Technology and Innovation Policy. Mouton said one individual had submitted 125 journal articles and 30 conference presentations in the previous year, while another had claimed seven books.

Mouton said the questionable activity appeared to be concentrated at five or six of South Africa’s 26 public universities. He did not identify the institutions because universities had not yet been briefed on the findings of the Publication Quality Framework Project.

The reported examples illustrate the scale of the concerns, but the department has not publicly named the universities involved in the alleged practices.

Stricter rules for journals and books

The proposed changes also target publications that fail to meet acceptable academic standards.

The department says publications in predatory, hijacked or cloned journals will not qualify for subsidies. Such outlets may lack proper editorial procedures, meaningful peer review or other safeguards expected of legitimate scholarly publications.

To help researchers and students identify eligible journals, the department has authorised the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) at Stellenbosch University to maintain the ZA Publications Monitor.

The resource provides information on the status of journals approved under the department’s framework, including cases in which journals have been discontinued or removed from recognised indexes.

The department has also raised concerns about books published through vanity publishers or clear cases of self-publishing. It is preparing a list of approved publishers, but until that list is available, the communiqué says authors will not be able to claim subsidies for books identified as vanity publications or clear cases of self-publishing.

Book claims will also fall under the proposed limit on the number of publications an individual author can submit.

These measures are intended to ensure that public funding supports eligible scholarly work rather than publications produced primarily to generate subsidy claims.

New conditions for postgraduate students

The proposals would also change when postgraduate students can claim research publication subsidies.

Under the measures outlined in the communiqué, students who are not currently enrolled in a master’s or doctoral programme would not be eligible to claim subsidies for their publications. Universities would be required to provide the relevant qualification information in their submissions.

Students would also be able to claim subsidies only for publications co-authored with a staff member of the university submitting the claim. Publications authored solely by students would not qualify under the proposed arrangement.

The department says the changes are intended to clarify the beneficiaries of the research output policy, which identifies scholars and expert academics as its primary beneficiaries. Universities already receive funding linked to the graduation of research master’s and doctoral students.

The communiqué, however, distinguishes these funding restrictions from the broader question of students publishing their research. It states that the measures are not intended to discourage postgraduate students from producing high-quality research where publication is appropriate or required.

Visiting researchers and institutional affiliations under scrutiny

Another area of concern involves visiting research fellows and associates whose primary university affiliation may be outside South Africa.

The department’s review found an increase in subsidy submissions involving visiting researchers whose relationships with the South African institutions claiming funding were not sufficiently clear. The communiqué also refers to researchers with multiple university affiliations that were not always declared.

Under the proposed measures, visiting fellows and associates who are not staff members of the university submitting a claim would qualify only when a staff member from the relevant academic department or centre co-authored the publication.

Researchers would also have to declare all their institutional affiliations. Failure to do so would result in disqualification from the subsidy, according to the communiqué. The South African university affiliation would also need to be clearly stated in the publication itself.

The department says universities must ensure that visiting researchers are formally appointed through appropriate institutional procedures and that their research is genuinely connected to the host institution.

These conditions are intended to prevent institutions from claiming public funding for work that does not meet the policy’s requirements for institutional affiliation and research activity.

Plagiarism and other forms of misconduct

The proposed framework extends beyond publication volume and eligibility. It also addresses several forms of research misconduct that the department says can be used to exploit the subsidy system.

These include plagiarism, gift or honorary authorship, repeated publication retractions, and “salami-slicing”, in which a substantial research study is divided into several smaller papers reporting limited or incremental findings.

The department also intends to develop mechanisms to identify papers produced through so-called paper mills, commercial operations that sell fabricated or fraudulent manuscripts for submission to academic journals.

Under the communiqué, authors found to have engaged in the listed forms of unethical publication behaviour would not qualify for subsidies for the affected publications. Authors who repeatedly violate the rules over successive years could be blacklisted from making further claims under the system.

The department says the existing policy already allows it to withhold subsidies where there is evidence of questionable publication practices, including excessive submissions by the same author.

Debate over research quality and university funding

The proposals have renewed debate about whether the subsidy model adequately rewards the quality and impact of academic research.

Lynn Morris, deputy vice-chancellor for research at the University of the Witwatersrand, who welcomed tighter scrutiny of subsidy claims. Morris argued that weaknesses in the system could allow funding to reach researchers whose output did not merit the reward.

She also questioned the way publication units are allocated. Under the current arrangements, a multi-author paper published in a high-impact international journal may generate a smaller allocation for a university than a single-author paper in a lower-impact local journal.

The distribution of research output units has also changed over time. According to the DHET’s evaluation of 2024 university research output, cited by Business Day, the University of Johannesburg received 2,780.6 units in 2024, equivalent to 13.52% of the total. The University of Fort Hare received 301.9 units, or 1.38%.

Mouton told Business Day that the 2015 policy had been intended, in part, to narrow differences between universities with stronger research records and those with weaker output. He argued that the existing system had instead contributed to greater inequality in the public university sector.

The department’s communiqué says the proposed restrictions are aligned with the original policy’s emphasis on both productivity and quality. It also notes that the policy warns against sacrificing research standards in pursuit of higher output volumes.

Consultation expected before implementation

The DHET plans to meet senior research managers from public universities before the end of 2026 to discuss the proposed changes and give institutions an opportunity to respond. A consultative forum is expected to provide further details, including indicative publication caps.

The proposals are not yet a fully implemented set of rules. Their precise limits and operational details remain subject to consultation, while the department intends to begin applying the measures from May 2027.

For universities, the changes could require closer internal checks of publication claims, journal eligibility, book publishers, student status and researchers’ institutional affiliations. Researchers may also need to review their publication and authorship practices before the new requirements take effect.

The department says its objective is to separate unethical practices from legitimate claims on public funds, while preserving the subsidy system’s purpose of supporting research at South African public universities.