Released in June 2020, a new consultancy report titled “Equitable access to research in a changing world: Research4Life Landscape and Situation Analysis”. This surveys the pressures on the Research4Life aid programmes. Established 20 years ago, Research4Life gives developing countries “free or low-cost” online access to journals and books from some 175 publishers. Along with other aid initiatives, this means that African universities often have better free access to journal databases than do some academics in advanced nations. The new report makes no recommendations, but a key point to note is that…
… some of the most relevant and influential research undertaken in low-and-middle income countries happens outside academia: in specialised research institutes, think tanks, or government-backed research agencies. In some countries, research agencies and institutes conduct research in national priority areas and have direct access to and influence on decision-makers” [yet] “these non-governmental organisations have in the past been excluded from open access debates, and may be unable to take advantage of initiatives such as Research4Life.
It could be useful to quantify that “may”, through further research. Do developing nations find roundabout ways to include their research agencies in Research4Life, such as giving off-campus agency researchers special log-ins to access the national university system? Or are such arrangements rather moot, in the age of open-access and Sci-hub? If not, would there be a real benefit if Research4Life were to be extended to bona fide government research agencies and suitable NGOs? How much would such an expansion actually cost, and what could the returns be in such nations?
