In Conversation: Elizabeth Marincola & Tom Kariuki, Science for Africa Foundation
For the second episode in our ‘In Conversation’ series, Martin Wilson, Head of Content at Taylor & Francis, interviewed the Science for Africa Foundation’s Founding Chief Executive Officer, Professor Tom Kariuki, and Senior Advisor for Open Science, Elizabeth Marincola.
The Science for Africa Foundation is the founding partner of Open Research Africa, the F1000 publishing hub which enables the rapid sharing, discovery, use and reuse of African research to the benefit of all. This three-part interview covers the challenges facing African countries and the role of science and pan-African research in addressing those issues – including health and the rise of non-communicable and pollution-related diseases, the climate crisis, and equity. They also delve into how Open Research Africa paves the way for research to be more accessible to the wider public and other researchers, allowing for a faster response to some of the world’s greatest issues, by making all research findings open and accessible to all Africans, including open peer review and open data.
In conversation with Elizabeth Marincola:
“It [publishing with Open Research Africa] plays a huge role because by publishing in an open environment, not only is the work available to other scientists who can build on it and advance solutions […] but it’s also accessible to the world, so it can get picked up by journalists who call public attention to [the issue], it gets picked up by clinicians who can take the lessons of what the output is and apply it to their thinking about their patients. And a group that is often forgotten but at the end of the day that is the most important group, and that is of patients and patient advocates who are demanding access to this information on behalf of those who are suffering from different health situations.”
Read more on F1000’s 10 years of open research publishing and watch episode 1 in which Martin Wilson interviews Rebecca Lawrence, F1000’s Managing Director.
Coming soon: Martin Wilson and Tom Kariuki