AAU president: ‘It is time we moved from talking to walking’

"He added that, as the celebration focused on the theme ‘Open Science – Bringing Equity to Research and Publishing’, it was appropriate that discussions were aligned to addressing the bigger picture. “I strongly believe that it is time we moved from talking to walking and to implementing the various recommendations that we come up with – at our departmental, institutional, and continental levels, year after year. The time to act is, indeed, now,” he said.... Oyewole said, contrary to the fear and apprehension that was held by some against open science when it started, he was confident that many have now been convinced that it is the way to conduct research. “Indeed, we all had first-hand experience about the benefit of open science when, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, both researchers and publishers in the scholarly sector made efforts to freely make available and in real-time, their COVID-related research, in a bid to help stem the rising tide of infections,” he added.... In addition, he said, the African continental publishing platform, one of the pillars of open science, is open access. The AAU, in collaboration with UbuntuNet Alliance (a regional research education network, or REN) is providing a cloud-based platform to host institutional journals...."