Open access in South Africa: A coherent strategy is needed (with corrigendum)

Abstract

If you asked an idealist to describe the scientific endeavour, the phrase 'seeking the objective truth' might come to mind. But how is this truth obtained? The sharing and translating of knowledge is perhaps the key ingredient, along with a dash of persistence and luck. As budding researchers, this notion excites us -the thought that our ideas can cut across the globe, serving a greater purpose of helping others along their path of truth seeking.One of us (MH) left Canada after graduating to work with the South African Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. The work involved a literature review and replying to requests for evidence summaries that flowed into the department. However, there was immediately a barrier to overcome that we have never encountered within our bubble of Canadian academia. This barrier -both a literal and virtual wall -most often presented itself as a paywall; colleagues in the department simply could not access a significant amount of published scientific research without having to pay exorbitant fees for access.Hailing from Canada means our home university affords us the privilege of institutional access to more publications and data than we would ever use. Encountering paywalls for the first time, brought up the question of how it was possible to function in a research unit without this ability to tap into the shared scientific body of knowledge. How can research units, let alone a branch of the South African government, be expected to deliver quality, evidenceinformed deliverables in a timely and feasible manner if the very evidence it relies on is inaccessible? The more we questioned, the clearer it was to us that this was not an isolated challenge.A recent survey of the capacity for evidence synthesis in Africa amongst 176 researchers, government officials and NGO workers indicated that a lack of access to research literature and data was one of the greatest hindrances to their work -second only to lack of funding. 3 This research climate may contribute to the fact that in the South African government, the use of research outputs as a main source of evidence is tepid, at best. In a recent survey, only 6 of 54 senior officials in the government indicated that they rely on research, while the majority (38) responded that they rely on their networks.4 While inability to access publications was not included in this survey, it would be reasonable to hypothesise the role it plays.5 Although tacit knowledge from strong networks can be useful, research data and publications remain imperative for evidence-informed decision-making. 6 In situations where institutional subscriptions are not feasible, open access provides another paradigm to facilitate evidencedinformed decision-making. 7,8 The case for open access is perhaps best understood in the context of health care. In the era of evidence-based medicine, 9 the public has an underlying assumption that physicians and frontline health-care workers are updated with high-quality health information so as to provide the best care possi...