From Aspiration to Output: A Research-Capacity Conversion Architecture for Teaching-Oriented Universities

Abstract

Background: Teaching-oriented and emerging universities are under growing pressure to increase research productivity, doctoral completion, and publication visibility, yet many still lack the institutional conditions required to convert scholarly aspiration into durable output. The central problem is therefore not adequately explained as low individual productivity alone, but as a failure of institutional conversion. Purpose: This article develops an evidence-informed Research Capacity Conversion Architecture (RCCA) to explain how teaching-oriented universities can build durable research capability through institutional alignment rather than isolated interventions. Methods: The study employs a critical integrative review with framework synthesis and theory-building intent. Evidence was drawn from peer-reviewed studies, conceptual scholarship, regional frameworks, and authoritative policy and programme documents published principally between January 2015 and April 2026, with selective inclusion of earlier seminal works where theoretically indispensable. The review was reported with selective adaptation of transparency principles from PRISMA 2020 and PRISMA-S appropriate to non-effect reviews. Analysis combined deductive coding across eight institutional domains with inductive thematic comparison and abductive model building. Findings: The synthesis identifies recurrent bottlenecks in research leadership, research management, supervision and mentoring, ethics and integrity, writing-to-publication support, incentive design, and institutional learning. In response, the article proposes the RCCA as an eight-domain model structured across three interacting layers: strategic foundations, developmental mechanisms, and a recursive conversion-learning loop. The analysis shows that sustainable research growth is best understood as an emergent institutional achievement produced by alignment among governance structures, scholarly practices, and evaluative feedback rather than by training intensity or metric pressure alone. Conclusion: The article contributes a theoretically specified, context-sensitive, and operationally useful framework for strengthening research capacity in teaching-oriented universities. It also provides a defensible basis for institutional reform, responsible research assessment, and future comparative implementation research in African and comparable higher education contexts.