Can science diplomacy usher in a new era of research publishing reform?

Research and innovation underpin almost every imaginable form of social and economic advancement, but the costs of accessing and publishing research lock out talented Global South researchers and prevent them from participating in global scientific conversations.

These issues are regularly discussed in academic circles, but it’s clear that high level leadership necessary for real reform.

We’re excited to be launching a new project to support more effective science diplomacy on these critical issues. We’ll be working closely with partners and stakeholders in Africa to build an evidence base to support these efforts.

Unlocking progress in publishing could be transformative for science and society across the world, and especially in the Global South, and drive real change for the early career researchers, educators and their institutions that are at the heart of INASP’s work.

We kicked off in Pretoria last week with a panel on “The role of science diplomacy for the promotion of global access”, co-convened with the UK High Commission at Science Forum South Africa, and chaired by the FCDO’s Deputy Director for Research and Evidence, Nathanael Bevan. We also launched our first contribution to the conversation, a new briefing paper How the G20 could champion access to evidence: South Africa 2025.

Panelists at Science Forum South Africa. Credit: Leanne Jones

Discussions in Pretoria ranged widely over the problems of academic incentives, the need to reclaim science for societal impact rather than allowing publication pressures to implicitly dictate decision-making of researchers and their institutions.

Our panelists identified several themes.

• Obstructing essential science. “Paywalls and private publishers capitalize on public research”, argued Dr Evelyn Gitau, Chief Scientific Officer of the Science for Africa Foundation, which in turn creates “barriers to advancement in research in health, environment and other areas”.

• Dr Nokuthula Mchunu, deputy director of the Africa Open Science Platform, argued that the founding principles of open access and open science are equity and inclusion. “Science has a prestige problem”, she noted, “are we asking researchers to do research for impact, or publication?”

• The problem of misaligned incentives for researchers was noted by several panelists, arguing that these must be urgently addressed if we want research to address societal challenges, shifting metrics for promotion firmly away from journal publication.

• The potential offered by the G20 – a platform that accounts for 90% of research funding, and whose presidency transferred to Africa for the first time a few days ago – was also noted. As Susan Veldsman, director at the Academy of Science of South Africa explained, Brazil, India, China and South Africa have already launched joint initiatives on open science.

• Prof. Madiagne Diallo from the Senegalese Economic, Social and Environmental Council pointed to the need to equip scientists to navigate the open science system more effectively, to enable them to make better decisions about where and how to share and publish their research.

• Dr Martiale Zebaze Kana from UNESCO pointed to what can be achieved when the world aligns to tackle a major challenge, explaining that while 70% of academic publications are behind paywalls, 85% of Covid publications were published open access. Conversely as we face a planetary challenge of global heating, 50% of climate related publications remain paywalled.

Continuing the conversations

This week we’ll be continuing the conversations in Cape Town, where Jon Harle will be joining the Diamond Open Access Summit, to learn more about the state of the art of Global South led publishing.

New team members

We’re also pleased to be welcoming Dr Tom Drake to the INASP team to lead the project. Tom is a health economist, based at the Center for Global Development, but has a long-standing interest in research publishing, including a stint leading on Open Access issues for DFID/FCDO.  In January we’ll be joined by two new team members to lead our core research outputs and are developing new partnerships.

Header image credit: Getty Images