Knowledge management and climate change: The KM4D Journal reborn open access | Maarifa - Knowledge and Information at ILRI

"Eight years ago the first issue of the Knowledge Management for Development Journal (KM4D Journal) was published. It emerged from November 2004 discussions in a small attic room at IICD in The Hague; the initial discussants were motivated by, among other things, the desire to create and publish an open journal to report and recognize the growing body of knowledge around knowledge management (KM) in development. Six months later 'like a duck to water'  the journal was born – part of a global KM4Dev community of practice ... In 2013, the journal returns to its original model – providing open access to all, peer review and the possibility to achieve academic impact factors. The first ‘re-opened’ issue is on ‘knowledge management and climate change.’  This is a very welcome development. In the years since our journal became closed access, the rest of the development world has woken up to openness as a fundamental dimension of development activities.  This interest in open access is reflected in recent open access requirements for development research (DFID), scientific research (EU) as well as the longer-established requirements in medicine (Wellcome Foundation,National Institutes of Health).  In agriculture, CIARD has moved the international community to more available and accessible research. The International Aid Transparency Initiative uses open information and data standards to make aid more effective, organizations like the World Bank, USAID, FAO and CGIAR are moving to open, while the Open Knowledge Foundation  is a 'global movement to open up knowledge around the world and see it used and useful.'  More generally, and increasingly important as an agenda-setter for knowledge managers and sharers, notions like open development and open engagement are gaining ground as vehicles to transform the way development itself is designed and delivered – through empowered individuals and collective action. Opening the ways development is done is getting to be more important than just making the products of development open. More and more, our knowledge sharing and management approaches have to help deliver on these intentions ..."