ANALYSING INSTITUTIONAL DRIVERS OF SUPERVISION STUDENT CO-PUBLICATION IN UGANDA AND SOUTH AFRICA: A DESKTOP STUDY

Improving research productivity and the worldwide visibility of African scholarship remains a priority for universities. This study examines supervisor–student co-publication practices from Uganda and South Africa. It deals with the continual disparity in research productivity and the low conversion of master’s dissertations into peer-reviewed articles. The aim was to analyse how university drivers and national strategies enhance supervision of master's co-publication productivity. A desktop study used seven articles obtained through an inclusion and exclusion process for articles published from 2022 to 2026. Data were analysed thematically analysis of seven articles published between 2022 and 2026, comparing bibliometric data and national reports. Findings show that South Africa achieved a 12–15% co-publication rate, which was driven by formalised incentives and funding, compared to Uganda with a rate below 2%, where there are no formalised incentives or funding, coupled with resource constraints and high supervision workloads. The study concludes that co-publication is a systemic outcome rather than an individual choice. This desktop study contributes to the economy of higher education by offering a comparative framework for institutional reform to shift from individual initiative and non-formalised to structured, policy to promote postgraduate co-publications.