Abstract:
As a result of the growing interest on University-Industry Linkages (UIL)’
research, systematic literature reviews and bibliometric studies have been undertaken to
describe the state-of-the-art and provide a quantitative overview of the literature on UILs.
However, these reviews have mainly enhanced the visibility of UILs’ literature targeting
developed countries. UILs’ literature focusing on developing countries, particularly on
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), is generally less visible. This paper seeks to fill this gap and to
enhance the visibility of UILs’ focusing on SSA, by undertaking a systematic literature
review and displaying its bibliometric portrait. More specifically, the paper addresses the
evolution, sources, main research questions, units of analysis, methods, countries resear-
ched, the influence of this literature, as well as its main findings. Based on Web of Science,
Scopus and Google Scholar, 230 relevant articles have been identified and analysed. The
paper’s findings demonstrate that, while SSA continues to be an under-research terrain, the
quantity of literature targeting this continent seems to be substantial and higher than it is
often portrayed. The findings also demonstrate the dominance of South Africa, Nigeria and
developed countries, both as knowledge producers and consumers of literature focusing on
SSA. African poor countries seem to suffer from a double neglect: they are under-re-
searched, but also ignored when research on them is produced. The paper argues, therefore,
for the need to reconsider the place of African low-income countries in UILs’ research,
both as empirical fields and as incipient knowledge producers
