Research Performance and Hierarchical Staff-Mix by Rank in a Research-Oriented System: A Case Study

This study examines the relationship between the research performance and the hierarchical staff-mix by rank (or staff-mix categories) for academics in a research-oriented system. A supervised learning approach is employed to classify academics on the basis of their research performance and the association between this classification and the staff-mix categories is measured using the Somer’s D coefficient. Although there have been other studies on research performance for such a system based on the volume-based indicators of research performance, this is the first study that assesses the researchers’ position in the academic reward structure on the basis of research performance. The Scopus database is used as a collection of individual productivity in research. A case-study is presented on a cross-section of academics in the mathematics discipline from different federal universities in Nigeria. The results show that there is a dearth of outstanding scientists in the system and that there is a weak association between research performance and the staff-mix categories. The need for scientific collaboration by way of a continuous collegial interaction between the outstanding scientists and the emerging scholars in the system is suggested.