Celebrating an opportunity to deepen capacity for open data infrastructure and management in Africa

17 JANUARY 2025

AfLIA is excited to share news about its selection as a recipient of the DataCite Global Access Fund! This award, under the Outreach and Engagement category, will enable AfLIA to increase awareness of the value of Open Science and persistent identifier (PID) infrastructure across Africa.

As the global momentum for Open Science grows, many African libraries and research institutions remain underrepresented due to limited access to infrastructure and technical expertise. AfLIA, representing libraries and information professionals Africa, is dedicated to changing this by fostering openness, access to information, and sustainable research practices.

With the support of this grant, AfLIA will be launching the “Open Data Infrastructure Course for African Libraries” project. The program will equip academic and research librarians, as well as ICT professionals, with vital skills in Open Data infrastructure, including DataCite tools, DOIs, metadata, and APIs. The course will be available in both English and French under an open license.

The initiative will debut at the during the 6th AfLIA Conference and 8th African Library Summit in Windhoek, Namibia, with both in-person and virtual pilot sessions. Insights from these pilots will shape the program, which will also train national library association representatives to champion Open Data infrastructure in their countries. This project will foster a sustainable model, establishing a Community of Practice and a Network of Open Data Advocates in Africa to promote peer learning, develop policy guidelines, and drive Open Science initiatives.

Our efforts aim to empower library and information professionals, amplify the visibility of African research, and strengthen Africa’s presence in the global research community. Through this project, we are creating pathways for integrating DataCite tools into workflows and advancing the future of Open Science across the continent. Stay tuned for more updates!

See announcement by DataCite here – https://datacite.org/blog/celebrating-the-second-cohort-of-datacite-global-access-fund-awardees/