Today, F1000 launches Open Research Africa, an open research publishing platform that enables the rapid sharing, discovery, use and reuse of African research for the benefit of all.    

Open Research Africa (ORA) is a publishing venue that provides African research organizations with a dedicated space to share and promote all of their research outputs rapidly and transparently via a bespoke publishing portal. ORA is an expansion and rebrand of AAS Open Research, thereby opening the platform up to further partners and broadens the range of eligible authors in Africa. 

The platform adopts F1000’s trailblazing open research publishing model which offers researchers the opportunity to share all sound research. It uses a streamlined submission process that supports rapid publication of research outputs, thereby accelerating the dissemination of knowledge and the pace of new discoveries. Open, post-publication peer review promotes understanding of the review and revision process, eliminating unnecessary editorial delays, and removing peer review bias. Once published, all content on Open Research Africa is made available to researchers, patients, teachers, journalists – anyone -- free-of-charge. Research that passes peer review is indexed in major databases such as PubMed and Scopus. 

Of the new platform, Rebecca Lawrence, Managing Director of F1000, said: 

“We are delighted to be launching Open Research Africa with the Science for Africa Foundation today, enabling eligible African researchers to publish all of their research findings in an open and accessible way. ORA aims to raise the profile of African research globally and maximize its reach, influence and potential impact by accelerating new knowledge in Africa and across the globe. Through our local partnerships and global networks, we are dedicated to meeting the information needs of librarians, researchers, professionals, teachers, and students across the continent. We see the future of F1000 in Africa as one based on partnerships, and we are looking forward to developing a high-quality publication venue for African research.” 

ORA is being launched in partnership with leading African science partners, most prominently the Science for Africa Foundation. It is a community platform, working with a number of Gateway partners and the World Continuing Education Alliance (WCEA) to enable them to provide healthcare professionals with access to relevant research and support their continued professional development (CPD). 

Open Research Africa provides support for early career researchers by providing greater visibility and better recognition of their research outputs and enabling submission of a wide diversity of article types, such as method articles, study protocols and software tools. The platform will also provide career development and training tools, resources and events dedicated to themes around open research tailored to the needs of African researchers.   

Open Research Africa is now accepting submissions from eligible researchers. All researchers funded by the SFA Foundation, including affiliated researchers of the Wellcome-supported DELTAS and H3Africa programs are eligible to submit their work on the platform. All researchers previously eligible to publish on AAS Open Research remain eligible. Eligibility will grow as new partnerships are developed.  

About F1000 

F1000 fosters a culture of innovation to accelerate the reach of knowledge and put it in the hands of those who will shape the future.   

We provide open research publishing solutions and services to organizations such as the European Commission, Wellcome, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as directly to researchers through our own publishing platform, F1000Research. F1000 is wholly owned by the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa Group company. 

Website: https://f1000.com/ | Twitter: @F1000