After its inception in late 2023, the eLife Global South Committee for Open Science began its activities in 2024, starting with establishing its aims and goals. By bringing together researchers from around the world, the committee focuses on promoting and increasing the visibility of open science initiatives in the Global South.
The Global South Committee’s members in 2024 include representatives from eight different countries: Olavo Amaral (Brazil), Dine Roseline Dzekem (Rwanda/Cameroon), Humberto Debat (Argentina), Muhammad Maqsud Hossain (Bangladesh), Nurul Izzati (Indonesia), Izuchukwu Okafor (Nigeria), Mercury Shitindo (Kenya), and Tao Uttamapinant (Thailand). Since its inception, the committee has been expertly chaired by Mercury Shitindo and Olavo Amaral, with vital support from vice-chair Muhammad Maqsud Hossain and the Communities team at eLife. All members have the opportunity to take turns in steering the committee’s activities as part of its structure.
Global South Committee events and initiatives in 2024
Last year, the committee recognised that across the Global South there are countless initiatives to foster and promote open science, as well as opportunities for researchers to gain knowledge on multiple dimensions of open science. However, these initiatives and learning opportunities don’t often have wider recognition and visibility. With this in mind, the committee's first actions were to reach out to other researchers involved in these open science initiatives to discuss how to help increase their visibility and create connections between them.
The result of these discussions was two landmark webinars, jointly attended by over 100 guests and in which the committee welcomed representatives from the Chinese Open Science Network, the African Reproducibility Network, the Metadocencia community from Argentina, the Academy of Science of South Africa, Thailand’s ThaiLIS library network, and the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology. These events, entitled "Promoting Open Science in and from the Global South” and ”Mapping the Open Science Landscape in the Global South”, served as opportunities to exchange experiences and identify commonalities and differences in the state of open science across regions and countries.
Mercury Shitindo introduces the eLife Global South Committee for Open Science at the webinar titled “Promoting Open Science in and from the Global South”.
Looking ahead
The conversations held during these events highlighted one of the committee’s priorities for 2025: mapping open science initiatives in the Global South and making them visible to a wider international audience. To achieve this, the committee is currently analysing existing directories of open science initiatives and developing partnerships to create a comprehensive and accessible resource. By making existing initiatives more visible, we hope to create connections among researchers with common interests – and challenges – in promoting open science in the Global South. The committee is also working on an article to showcase the Global South's contributions to open scholarly communication.
As we enter 2025, we are pleased to welcome three new members who will strengthen our global representation: Carolina Santacruz (Colombia), Chandana Basu (India), and Henry Awika (Virgin Islands). Additionally, eLife has recently welcomed a new Community Manager, Anna Korzeniowska, who replaces Shane Alsop in supporting the work of the Global South Committee. Shane, who is now eLife’s Publishing Development Manager, was a key contributor to the success of the committee’s work in its first year.
Together, we hope to take more concrete steps to foster open science in the Global South by strengthening existing networks, maximising their impact, and creating new connections among different countries and regions in this part of the world.
