Researchers call for more open access to knowledge - University World News

Researchers from across the continent and beyond have called for governments and universities to introduce policies to guarantee open access to scientific knowledge in Africa. Delegates in Senegal’s capital Dakar, at the Fourth Conference on Electronic Publishing held by the pan-African Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa or CODESRIA, adopted the ‘Déclaration de Dakar’ demanding the lifting of constraints that hinder access to scientific information in Africa, reported AllAfrica. According to Ebrima Sall, executive secretary of CODESRIA, the Dakar declaration set out the main economic challenges and technological obstacles that still made access difficult on the continent – including the high cost of subscriptions to scientific publications, which meant few African universities could have first-hand reference to those sources.