Improved Open Access Research Platform Launched

A vastly improved scheme that provides free access to African research will be launched by South Africa’s Minister of Science and Technology Derek Hanekom on 22 July. The scholarly platform became a full family member of the SciELO Network Global Portal three months ago.

Since its inception in 1987 in Brazil, the online open access SciELO indexed platform has been successfully implemented in another eight countries: Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Cuba, Spain, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela.

SciELO was first established in Africa by the Academy of Science for South Africa, or ASSAf, in 2009.

“We took a tentative step towards making scholarly publishing, and scholarly journals in particular, more accessible in a developing society to meet the demands for high-level skills in emerging economies,” Susan Veldsman, director of the scholarly publishing unit at ASSAf, told University World News.