On July 7-11, 2008, a delegation from the Academy of Sciences of South Africa (ASSAf) visited BIREME In Sao Paulo, Brazil. The ASSAF delegation was there to review the potential for the adoption of the SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) model as a platform to manage scientific publication in South Africa. Given that there is a wider African Academies of Science project to boost scholarly publishing across Africa, this could be a spearhead for a future regional open access network. (For background, see my blog of 30 April.)

This was an important visit. SciELO is a model of successful regional collaboration to raise the profile of a developing economy region's research publication in the face of an inequitable global system. Given that Thomson Scientific is reported to be looking at the question of regional journals right now, it is worth looking at a bit of history. A similar exercise happened in 1982, at which the status of 'peripheral' or 'Third World' journals was discussed. As Jean-Claude Guèdon describes the result in a recent publication, given the task of reviewing how to deal with a national perspective on contributions to world science, the national perspective was 'ultimately dismissed, presumably as a provincial exercise of no interest to the rest of the world. Without justification or analysis, a distinction between “local publications” and “mainstream” or “world science” as if it were evidence”.

We live with the results of this perverse interpretation of scientific universalism' as Guèdon describes it, as we all know.

BIREME has produced a detailed newsletter on this visit in which Wieland Gevers is quoted on South Africa's position in this regard:

According to Wieland Gevers, among the 225 South African scientific journals, over one hundred have never had an article cited. “South Africa occupies a paradoxical position in the context of scientific publication: it is simultaneously a giant within the African context and a dwarf in the international arena”, defined Gevers. He also added that “we are talking about a country that has nine Nobel Prize winners, and four are related to scientific fields, including Allan MacLeod Cormack ... -the co-inventor of CAT scanning...

We watch the outcome of this initiative with great interest. SciELO could be a powerful partner. Guèdon describes it as probably the most  successful regional/international initiative - it includes Portugal and Spain as well as Latin American countries – which has the potential, he argues, 'to play a formidable role in this battle to remove the divide barriers or, at least, lower them' . He argues for 'strong international collaboration with well-targeted countries to build a base for the reform of scientific power in a credible way. These countries are quite easy to identify and have already been mentioned before: they include China and India. Africa must be included because it is suffering the most from the knowledge divide that has been constantly decried, criticised and attacked in this text.'

More background from the BIREME newsletter:

SciELO has had a successful performance in Latin America and the Caribbean, and is an outstanding reference in the process of research, evaluation and adoption of a solution for national scientific communication...The first portal - SciELO Brazil collection - started operating publicly in 1998. Since then, the SciELO project has developed and is present in eight countries, adding up to over 550 titles of certified journals and more than 180 thousand full-text articles available free online (open access), including original articles, review articles, editorials and other types of communication...

ASSAf showed interest to put into practice a pilot experience with an initial group of five South African publications in order to test the functionalities of the SciELO platform. The BIREME was invited to make a technical visit to South Africa in September 2008 to demonstrate the system to the members of the Academy Advisory Board.

Guédon, J., 2007. Open Access and the divide between “mainstream” and “peripheral” science. In Ferreira, Sueli Mara S.P. and Targino, Maria das Graças, Eds. Como gerir e qualificar revistas científicas. Available at: http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00012156/ [Accessed August 3, 2008].