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Tag Archives: Access
What is the biggest challenge in bringing Southern research to bear on global issues? INASP Trustees reflect
The world is facing many global issues that need to be tackled collectively – from climate change and health to sustainable economies and migration. Knowledge and evidence can help us tackle these issues with informed solutions. But we need to unlock the knowledge from across the world in order to find the best ways forward. To celebrate INASP’s 25th Anniversary, we asked our Trustees to reflect on the biggest challenges in unlocking the potential of research and evidence generated in the global south to tackle worldwide issues. Continue reading
Annual review highlights successes of INASP’s 5 year strategy
Julie Brittain, INASP Executive Director, looks back at the past year and shares some highlights from our latest annual review. The INASP team, in collaboration with our network of local partners, have been working very hard this past year to implement our new five-year strategy, launched last year. This set out priorities for our work, based on our own experiences and that of our partners, as well as key challenges and opportunities for continuing to pursue our vision of research and knowledge at the heart of development. “Harnessing global talent and knowledge is crucial to tackling global problems” – Click to tweet “Let’s work together to bring Southern knowledge to bear on local and global challenges.” – Click to tweet Our latest annual review (April 2016-March 2017) gives a taste of achievements we, along with our partners, have made within five focus areas set out in the strategy. Tackling the gender … Continue reading
Enabling access to research in public institutions: emerging insights
Addressing lack of access to e-resources in public institutions brings together two streams of focus at INASP: using research and knowledge for national development and sharing and communicating research knowledge. Continue reading
Tagged Access, EIPM, parliaments
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High prices could drive developing country researchers to use pirate websites like Sci-Hub
Sci-Hub – a website that finds a way through paywalls to host free copies of over 40 million journal papers from major publishers – has been a topic of much discussion in the last few weeks. My aim here isn’t to get into the rights and wrongs of the site – I’ll leave that for others. But it is a good opportunity to reflect on a deeper problem, one that INASP sees – and works to solve – daily. In short, access to essential research is just too expensive for many institutions and individuals in the developing world. That’s something that we need to talk about. It’s also something we should be worrying about. Struggles to access research hamper development If researchers and students are still struggling to access what they need, then that’s a major obstacle to them reaching their full potential. That’s not just an issue for individual … Continue reading
Firm foundations: access to high-quality materials-science information underpins Ethiopia’s construction work
This week, INASP’s Anne Powell spoke at the UKSG Forum in London. In her presentation, she reflected on the role that INASP plays in supporting the research priorities of countries like Ethiopia. At the UKSG Forum on Wednesday 18th November I was lucky enough to present one of the lightning talks in the afternoon session on “Supporting authors from an HEI perspective”. Having heard experiences from the Universities of Nottingham and Huddersfield in the UK, I was able to share some perspectives about developing-country research. The example that I shared was from my visit to Ethiopia earlier this year when I saw the amount of construction taking place, notably of seven-storey office or apartment buildings. These, my Ethiopian hosts told me, are owned by Ethiopians and destined for occupancy by Ethiopians, truly feeding into the local economy and development. The new buildings are situated on roads that double up as … Continue reading
Tagged Access, AuthorAID, conference, Ethiopia, UKSG
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Innovation grants at INASP: working across teams to increase use of online research literature
In the recently announced “Innovation grant for using online research literature” we have been able to bring the various components of INASP’s programmes together. In designing and developing these grants, members of four strands of INASP’s activities – Research Access and Higher Education, AuthorAID, Evidence Informed Policy Making and our Communications team – came together to discuss possible barriers to the use of online literature, as they affect each core stakeholder group – librarians, researchers, academics and policymakers. Access to online research literature underpins many INASP activities – researchers need access to these resources to prepare high-quality papers, and policymakers can use evidence from online resources to develop their policies. Researchers and policymakers, along with academics, lecturers and librarians, are all eligible to apply for a grant to support a project that includes an innovative idea of how to increase online research literature usage while also achieving a research, policy … Continue reading
Tagged Access, AuthorAID, cross-programme, E-resources, EIPM, Grant, Innovation, Research
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