Research practice changes with technology, data availability, policy, funding, publishing standards and the institutions that produce knowledge. F1RMA Research Intelligence interprets those changes for scholars rather than simply reposting research news.
01 · AI & RESEARCH
AI changes the speed of research tasks, not the need for research judgement.
Generative AI can assist with search-term development, summarisation, coding support, language refinement and comparison of source documents. The risk arises when assistance is confused with authority. AI systems can produce fluent statements that are incomplete, misleading or unsupported. Researchers therefore need a verification workflow that separates idea generation from evidence confirmation.
A defensible workflow is AI suggestion → original source → verification → researcher judgement → final writing. Where universities, journals or funders require disclosure of AI use, those rules remain binding.
02 · AFRICAN RESEARCH
Context is not a footnote; it can change what evidence means.
Research conducted in African settings is frequently interpreted through evidence generated elsewhere. International evidence can be valuable, but transferability should not be assumed. Infrastructure, labour markets, institutional capacity, language, financing systems and regulatory environments can alter how a phenomenon operates.
This creates an opportunity for African scholarship to do more than replicate studies geographically. Strong contextual research can test whether established theories travel, identify mechanisms that are absent from dominant models, and generate evidence useful for local policy and practice.
03 · DATA SOURCES
Use official data where the question requires population-level evidence.
Credible research may require data beyond journal articles. WHO provides international health data; UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics provides internationally comparable education data; the DHS Program and UNICEF MICS provide household survey resources; ILOSTAT provides labour-market statistics; and national statistical agencies remain essential for country-specific indicators.
Researchers should document who produced the data, when it was collected, how variables were defined, what population was covered and whether the dataset is suitable for the intended comparison. Official status does not remove the need to understand metadata and measurement limitations.
04 · EVIDENCE BRIEFS
Research intelligence should show both findings and uncertainty.
A useful evidence brief should state the question, describe the evidence reviewed, summarise key findings, identify important limitations and explain the implications. It should not present a single study as definitive where the wider evidence is mixed. F1RMA’s Research Intelligence section is therefore designed to distinguish what is known, what is plausible and what remains uncertain.
