Regional

LIBSENSE engages in various activities to foster the development and implementation of open science policies across Africa. These activities are designed to support regional collaboration, enhance research visibility, and build capacity among academic and research institutions.

Here’s an overview of our key activities:

Policy Collaboration and Development

LIBSENSE collaborates with regional higher education regulatory and oversight bodies to establish comprehensive, cross-cutting regional open science policies. These collaborations aim to align regional policies with the openness, transparency, and inclusivity principles outlined in the UNESCO Recommendations on Open Science.

Infrastructure Development

LIBSENSE partners with research and education networks (RENs) to develop and manage tailored, community-driven open access (OA) platforms and services. These initiatives are focused on:

- Increasing the visibility of African scholarly outputs
- Enhancing the accessibility and interoperability of research data repositories
- Promoting the use of persistent identifiers to ensure the long-term discoverability of research outputs

Additionally, the regional catchall infrastructure from WACREN to support the initiatives serves as a complement to these efforts.

Capacity Building

To empower stakeholders in the academic research and publishing ecosystem, LIBSENSE offers various capacity-building initiatives, including:

- Webinars on skills profiles and open access publishing
- Training on research data repository management and interoperability
- Workshops on the use of persistent identifiers and eduID
- Development programs for Early Career Researchers, including training on research ethics and best practices
- Initiatives to discover and curate Arabic scholarly content through specialised harvester development