Preprints ‘not taking off’ in Africa - Research Professional News
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Researchers’ career incentives, poor infrastructure, and weak policy support are blocking the wider adoption of preprints in Africa, despite their potential to accelerate open access and collaboration, experts warned at a recent webinar.
The webinar, hosted by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the International Network for Advancing Science and Policy (Inasp), and the Academy of Science of South Africa (Assaf), discussed the role of funders in advancing open access publishing in Africa.
Assaf’s scholarly publishing director, Susan Veldsman, highlighted that efforts to promote preprints—which allow researchers to publish draft articles before peer review—across the continent have largely fallen flat.
"Researchers at this point in time are just not interested in preprints," she said. "Despite the introduction of numerous services and open research repositories in Africa, preprints have yet to gain traction."
This sentiment was echoed by Alice Chadwick El-Ali, who leads an Inasp project promoting publishing reform. She discussed policy options for funders seeking to improve the timeliness of research findings, emphasizing that preprints could be a viable route, but only if they are recognized within research assessment.
The conventional focus on impact factor journals poses a significant challenge. Nokuthula Mchunu, an open science advocate at South Africa’s National Research Foundation, explained that long-standing incentives tied to these journals make it difficult for researchers to embrace new models.
"Research assessment is very much driven by researchers," she noted. "However, researchers who sit on review panels for funding applications often lack metrics for assessing non-traditional outputs, including preprints. Until openness is rewarded, implementing open science will be a formidable task."
Martin Ongol, executive secretary of Uganda’s National Council for Science and Technology, echoed similar concerns. He pointed out that many universities remain focused on conventional publishing metrics, while infrastructure and digitisation gaps hinder open access.
Veldsman advocated for a tailored approach, emphasizing that Africa’s open access community should align its efforts with the actual needs and values of researchers. "We must not just promote and advocate for open access and its various components," she said. "We must clearly understand what Africa and South Africa, in particular, require."
The panel also addressed the issue of hefty article processing charges charged by open access journals, which perpetuate commercial publishing models. They agreed that better connectivity, repository infrastructure, and data management support are essential to boost open access publishing, but stressed that none of these initiatives will succeed without a shift in how research quality is rewarded.
