# Author Sovereignty Gap

In research governance, does the distribution of authorship positions on publications from African clinical trials indicate a sovereignty gap in intellectual leadership? This bibliometric analysis cross-referenced 23,873 African ClinicalTrials.gov registrations with publication records to evaluate first-author and last-author nationality through March 2026. Investigators reported the proportion of non-African first authors as the primary estimand for intellectual sovereignty. An estimated sixty percent of publications from African trials had non-African first authors, while the senior author position was even more dominated by Northern researchers from institutions in the United States and United Kingdom. The author sovereignty gap was most pronounced in industry-sponsored trials where African researchers frequently occupied middle-author positions reflecting data-collection rather than intellectual-leadership roles. South Africa and Kenya showed the highest rates of African first authorship, suggesting that local institutional strength can partially offset the structural disadvantage. These findings quantify the intellectual extraction pipeline as a measurable governance deficit. Interpretation is limited by the incomplete linkage between trial registrations and resulting publications.

## References

1. Hedt-Gauthier BL, et al. "Stuck in the middle: authorship in collaborative health research in Africa." BMJ Glob Health. 2019;4:e001853.
2. Mbaye R, et al. "Who is telling the stories of Africa?" BMJ Glob Health. 2019;4:e001855.

## Note Block

- Type: research
- App: https://mahmood726-cyber.github.io/africa-e156-students/governance-justice/dashboards/author-sovereignty-gap.html
- Code: https://github.com/mahmood726-cyber/africa-e156-students/blob/master/governance-justice/code/author-sovereignty-gap.py
- Data: ClinicalTrials.gov API v2
- Date: 2026-04-05