Launching the Forum for Open Research in MENA

The production and promotion of open research is becoming increasingly important; it is not only a primary concern for all areas of the academic eco-system, but also impacts the commercial and industrial sectors and is crucial to the development of successful knowledge economies across the world. As an platinum open access publisher, based in Dubai and working closely with a number of leading research, government and library institutions, we know that the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is no exception. The region has a rapidly developing, and increasingly advanced, tertiary education sector and numerous well-funded research networks. However, we have noticed that the open access movement has gained comparatively limited traction in MENA owing to a range of factors including widespread misconceptions about the nature of open access, a lack of awareness about its benefits, unsupportive institutional policies, and inadequate structural frameworks. The first part of this paper will explore the underlying issues we have identified which are hampering the expansion of open research in MENA and then share the results of some of our surveys on this topic. The second part of the paper will focus on our solution to these issues, the Forum for Open Research in MENA (FORM). Our mission is to collaborate with leading libraries and research organisations to raise awareness of the open access movement and its benefits, and provide a forum for leading regional stakeholders and global experts to discuss key issues and exchange ideas. In the process, we hope to address structural inequities relating to the accessibility and visibility of the region’s research outputs, especially Arabic-language research. The first step in this project was our 2021 symposium ‘Towards a more knowledgeable world with O.A. research in MENA’. This event brought together key regional stakeholders (including the Qatar National Library, the Dubai Health Authority, and the Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research) and global organisations (such as Crossref, Harvard University, Open Access Directory and ORCiD) to discuss effective strategies for promoting open access research across the region. During the symposium, we announced the forthcoming development of FORM and received expressions of interest and sponsorship from a number of major regional stakeholders. We are now working with our regional and global supporters to develop the necessary infrastructure, and aim to officially launch FORM during this year’s Open Access Week. In this paper, I will discuss the development of the FORM project and the work we are doing to help libraries reform regional perceptions and support open research, especially Arabic-language research.