Patterns of the China-Africa research collaborations from 2006 to 2016: a bibliometric analysis

International collaboration with the Western countries has over the years been the main component of research and development in Africa's higher education. However, Africa continues to lag behind in research performance. In the last decade, the rise of China brought on board an additional partnership through the Forum on China-Africa Collaboration initiatives guided by China-Africa policy. In view of the growing scepticism and misgivings over the China approach to collaboration with Africa, assessing patterns of progress by the China-Africa research collaborations cannot be ignored. Using bibliometric analysis of research data from InCites, the study reveals that the partnership is growing progressively in absolute terms though with high levels of relative growth rate. A few of the African countries are more engaged than the others. Fortunately for Africa, the partnership involves the physical sciences where the continent is greatly lacking and high impact is being registered. The study has the implication that while Africa needs to address issues of policy on sciences and funding for research in higher education, China equally needs to go beyond the current locations in Africa and equally engage with the lesser developed players on the continent.