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Information technology has influenced scholarly communication and how higher education institutions assess research impact. This has extended the role that the academic library plays in supporting researchers in the research life cycle. These global trends have impacted academic libraries in Africa too, albeit to different extents. This paper reports from the literature and empirical findings of a single aspect of a wider study on research impact assessment that enquired into best practices for assessing research impact in higher education institutions in Africa and the evolving role of academic libraries in support of research impact assessment. The paper draws from a qualitative aspect of the wider mixed-methods study informed by research impact theory, and specifically findings from semistructured interviews with relevant stakeholders such as academic librarians, university research office personnel, and African research council managers. The paper concludes that librarians traditionally have been well placed to play a pivotal role in research impact assessment due to their professional competencies. Academic libraries will continue to evolve and in doing so play a significant role in the research life cycle of higher education knowledge systems. African academic libraries need to contextualize research impact assessment such that it speaks to the research needs of African contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]