Decolonial dilemmas: balancing global recognition and local impact in South African research

The pursuit of decolonial scholarship in academia can be impacted by the pressure to attain international recognition as a requirement for academic promotion. Academic promotion for scholars is often linked to publishing in high-impact journals, which frequently lack African representation. This paper critically examines the internationally benchmarked system of evaluating and rating researchers employed by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa, focusing on the concept of Considerable International Recognition (CIR) and its ramifications for decolonial scholarship. Utilizing Qualitative Document Analysis (QDA) this study investigated how the definitions and criteria related to CIR in documents provided by the NRF of South Africa influences researchers to prioritize international scholarly activities over locally relevant work. This analysis also seeks to uncover the implications of this prioritization for decolonial work within the South African research landscape. Findings indicate that NRF ratings heavily prioritize international recognition, often overlooking locally impactful research, which can limit support for decolonial scholarship. Recommendations call for expanded criteria that include local relevance, enabling researchers to be rated for contributions grounded in locally relevant work.