Practices of Maintaining Academic Research Quality in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs): Quests and Upheavals

Maintaining academic research quality in HEIs has become a crucial demand of the day due to the need for advancing knowledge, standing answerable to the public, safeguarding institutional credibility, and pacing with the changing academic environments. This study, therefore, investigated the practices of maintaining academic research quality at three HEIs in Ethiopia. A blend of both qualitative and quantitative approaches was used to collect data using a questionnaire and interview guide questions. The results revealed that the major practices across the three universities include: prioritizing the quantity of research outputs (reports/publications), focusing on researching quality (during the process), ensuring theoretical/conceptual grounding, and upholding methodological rigor aligned with the study’s purpose. The practices, however, did not lead to consistent quality enhancement, to usability of the findings, and to epistemic reflexivity to improve future research. Pragmatic soundness, relevance to policies and practices, usability, fitness of- and for- purpose, and action-ability and/or applicability of research results in a real world settings were hardly achieved. It has, therefore, been recommended that the HEIs should go beyond number games, dubious practices, and positivist ventures by considering pragmatic and transformative utility, adding value for the public money, and pacing along with the changing academic environments.