Research funders can play a key role in driving open science principles and behaviors. It helps if these funders are governments, policy makers and institutions, such as those responsible here in Africa for Research, Science, Technology, and Innovation (RSTI) policy, and those behind regional efforts like the Science Granting Councils Initiative.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP) guidance on research outputs from the public purse is critical and will significantly shift the landscape to open science. US federal funding for research in Africa is significant and there are global investment and capital flows into African RSTI ecosystems. We see strengthened collaborative networks and high-quality scientific papers and research outputs as a result. Across Africa, for example, a research focus on health has benefited from that investment, through initiatives from the US National Institutes of Health such as Data Science for Health Discovery and Innovation in Africa. The same is true of research on the environment, climate change, biodiversity, and other areas.

For the Global South, and the African continent specifically, the efficiency and productivity gains from open science present a compelling case for government research funding in the context of limited resources and competing priorities.

Moreover, the global impact of the OSTP guidance will be greater if – in addition to UNESCO’s Open Science Recommendations and the perspective of bodies such as the International Science Council – there is an accompanying toolkit for implementation. The development of that toolkit could be based on sharing best practices and building consensus across governments, in the spirit of the guidance.

In all of this, it is vital we see data as key to multidisciplinary research (see for example the benefits of linking environmental data to health outcomes); and key to societal engagement, not least given the broader issues of data citizenship, literacy, and values. Collaborative data projects can tease out challenges and drive open science and data sharing across borders, jurisdictions, and here across Africa’s RSTI ecosystems.

There is admittedly a myriad of success factors in making effective research, science, technology, and innovation ecosystems fit for purpose, able to offer ROI over various time scales, and capable of seeing desirable outcomes over multiple indicators. But undoubtedly, investment and enabling policy frameworks at institutional, national, and global levels are key. The same is true of joint global action through open science diplomacy. There are many stakeholders and actors, and multiple vested interests, motivations, and tradeoffs in play.

And of course, the culture change, and its management, required to embrace and apply open science principles occurs in the context of long-standing norms for scientific publishing. There are some inherent tensions between the reward mechanisms in academic career progression and the need to share openly and collaborate. A whole set of challenges must be tackled, not least the new incentives required to help disrupt the status quo.

For Africa, the priorities for open science in a digital era include easy, equitable access to research outputs and knowledge, and the broad democratization of science. Delivering on these will require models and systems of publishing that, amongst other things, recognize African researchers and data stewards in the global scientific enterprise, which can in turn focus on research carried out on the continent. These will help stop the brain drain we see to more mature scientific ecosystems and allow African scientists and innovators to access research outputs, including many of their own locked behind subscription paywalls.

All this will require open science diplomacy at a global level, in the broadest sense as “the use of scientific, technological and academic collaborations among countries, regions and societies to address common issues and to build sound international partnerships” (SciTech DiploHub).

It will also require greater collaboration across research infrastructures and the creation of open science platforms – such as ours, the African Open Science Platform – which in turn can network globally. In that context, for example, the recent Brno Declaration on a global ecosystem of research infrastructure was key. This OSTP guidance is likely to allow the U.S. government and agencies to grow their engagement with those platforms and could be a significant piece of the jigsaw in a more closely linked global network.

Biography

Dr Motshegwa is the inaugural Director of the African Open Science Platform (AOSP) with a strategic portfolio to direct and support the AOSP. The AOSP aims to position African scientists at the cutting edge of data intensive science by stimulating interactivity and creating opportunity by developing efficiencies of scale, building critical mass through shared capacities, amplifying impact through a commonality of purpose and voice, and engaging in Global Commons to address continental and global challenges through joint action.

The AOSP is supported by the South African Department of Science and Innovation, the International Science Council, CODATA, the Academy of Science of South Africa, Bibliotheca Alexandria, and other prominent regional networks.