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How can we achieve greater publishing equity for researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa and developing countries? We spoke to Dr. Jean Christophe Rusatira, former Program Officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, to learn what barriers exist and what he hopes to achieve as part of the Advisory Board for Gates Open Research. 

Please tell us about your work as a health advocate and your role at the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health. 

Over the last decade, my health advocacy work has been mainly focused on health education, promotion of sexual and reproductive health and rights, and contributing to evidence generation and dissemination in this field.  For me, being a health advocate has been more than just advocating for policies and programs that I believed would make positive changes in people’s lives. I have realized that health advocacy is working with the communities that we intend to support, learning from them, and adapting our plans and programs to the needs of these communities. However, this should not override the specific needs of individuals in these communities.  

In my work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, I co-chaired the scientific subcommittee of the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) and led the demographic dividend work of the institute. Among my many tasks with ICFP, I had a responsibility to support people who had presented their work at the conference to convert their abstracts into journal publications. 

What are the publishing barriers faced by researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa?

The researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa face publishing barriers at different levels. When compared to institutions in many developed countries, there are limited in-country resources and investments available for research. This limited availability of resources affects the amount of research apprenticeship opportunities for junior researchers locally. Additionally, it limits their access to publications from journals in their respective fields. In recent years, open access to journals has gained more traction, but most journals still provide limited access to readers from Sub-Saharan Africa. 

How are these barriers being addressed? 

These barriers are being addressed but there is still a long way to go. More institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa are strengthening their research portfolios and are integrating research in various other domains. However, since most well-established journals are located outside this region, there is less familiarity with publishing processes, and it takes a while for emerging researchers to become familiar with various journals. Further, most data collection initiatives have mostly focused on collecting data and publishing reports and less on data utilization. More still needs to be done to build the capacity of locals to own and carry on these initiatives as well as utilize these data to inform action. 

How much awareness and advocacy exists for open access currently?   

Open access is still new to many researchers. Many researchers are not aware of open access journals available to them in their specific areas of interest. Commonly, in developed countries, libraries and librarians have the expertise on how to access journals and play the role of transferring this knowledge to students, staff, and researchers. The availability of such expertise is limited in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, there are increasing advocacy efforts across the region and globally for open access. As more opportunities increase for open access, more researchers from Sub-Saharan Africa will publish their work.  

How has the shift towards open access affected researchers in regions of low resource?

The shift towards open access and the rise of pre-prints have remarkably increased the number of researchers from Sub-Saharan Africa submitting their work for publication. For instance, 46 publications were submitted to Gates Open Research following the launch of the ICFP gateway. The majority of these publications were co-authored by researchers from Sub-Saharan Africa. It will be interesting to see how platforms such as Gates Open Research compare to other platforms regarding publications co-authored by researchers from Sub-Saharan Africa and how different gateways of Gates Open Research will perform after a few years. 

What steps do you think can be taken towards greater equity publishing?   

The majority of journals and systems are in English and researchers operating in other languages find it challenging when open access portals do not have options for their languages. Among the immediate next steps, open access publications should be made available in French and Portuguese to benefit most researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa.  

What are you hoping to achieve as part of the Advisory Board for Gates Open Research?  

As part of the Advisory Board, I am hoping to be the voice for my fellow researchers from Sub-Saharan Africa. My experience working in different countries in the region and running the ICFP has given me great insights that I would like to make sure are integrated into Gates Open Research moving forward. This is also a great opportunity because not many platforms are as open to implementing new ideas as Gates Open Research has done so far.