Minister of Science and Technology supports open access | News

Without open access young scientists in Africa will be disadvantaged in their collaboration with their European counterparts, Mr Derek Hanekom, Minister of Science and Technology, said at the gala dinner of the Berlin 10 Open Access Conference on Wednesday evening, 7 November 2012. (Read his speech here).  'We need to unite to ensure that the playing field is levelled through access to new knowledge without financial and infrastructural barriers,' he said.

To address access to scientific knowledge in general, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) has requested the Academy of Science of South Africa to investigate the electronic information needs of academic staff, postgraduate students and researchers within universities and research councils in the country.  Key to the dissemination of knowledge is that it should be made available to as many people as possible. 'Access to knowledge should not be the preserve of one group or individual,' Hanekom said.  He added that the DST, together with the Department of Higher Education, is exploring ways in which institutions can access scholarly journals in commercially funded databases through a system of nationally centralised subscriptions to e-publications.  Hanekom said that the DST – through its partner, the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) – invests significantly in the nurturing of a culture of research production. It supports the Scientific Electronic Library Online South Africa (SciELO), an open-source software-based system that ensures that scientifically accredited work published in local journals becomes more visible through search engines and bibliometric tools..."