Research Information:FOCUS ON LATIN AMERICA


to strengthen research on rural issues, to a member of the National Council for Science, Technology and Innovation in Peru, engaged with developing policies and tools related to science and technology.


Universidad Mayor de San Simon, Cochabamba, Bolivia


research; however, they do not complete the cycle by failing to publish and share it,’ he explained.


In a conference speech in October, Elba Rosa Pérez Montoya, Cuba’s minister for science, technology and environment, also noted the importance of strengthening links between research knowledge and society. Montoya commented on the need for greater knowledge of the integration of science, technology and innovation into the wider value chain of development, and for further work on the prioritisation of science, technology and innovation, as well as indicators of success, and how all this works in harmony with the country’s long-term development. The need to strengthen the links between research and practice has been recognised by INASP’s partners in our evidence-informed policy making work. With a grant from the INASP-led VakaYiko project, Argentina- based think net Politics & Ideas (www. politicsandideas.org) recently ran a seven-week online course in evidence-informed policy making. The course involved 25 participants from across Latin America, from Guatemala to Argentina, working at the national, subnational and local levels. The profiles of participants ranged from a member of a public/ private corporation in Colombia, committed


Open Access Week in Cuba


Each year for Open Access Week, INASP and UNESCO run a joint competition to provide grants to support open access (OA) initiatives. The 2015 recipients included two institutions from Cuba.


For Universidad Central ‘Marta Abreu’ de Las Villas, Open Access Week created an opportunity for


www.researchinformation.info


the library to launch and promote the university’s institutional repository as a new service to share, to search and retrieve scientific information. The INASP/UNESCO grant helped the library promote the new service to all members of the university community at UCLV and to other higher education and


@researchinfo


research institutions in Cuba, to share all the scientific information and knowledge developed at this university.


The library also held conferences about the OA Initiative, to increase the culture of Open Access among our students, teachers and researchers. The OA week allows us to launch


and promote the institutional repository as a new service to share, to search and retrieve scientific information,’ reported library representatives.


At the University of Havana, the focus of their Open Access Week activities was on training. It also ran a hands-on workshop on OA repositories.


DECEMBER 2015/JANUARY 2016 Research Information 19


Access and open access The issue of access is important for many researchers across Latin America. Aleman noted the value to researchers in Nicaragua of access to publishers’ subscription resources through INASP’s e-resource activities. ‘Our collaboration with INASP enables access to relevant international databases, which under other circumstances would have been impossible to achieve.’


More broadly, he is a strong champion of open access (OA). ‘Open Access in Latin America is essential to create a research culture in our societies. The high cost of e-resources makes them inaccessible for many Latin American


The issue of access is important for many researchers across Latin America


researchers. [OA] is essential to strengthen the capacities of national systems of libraries and research through improved access to e-resources with up-to-date and high-quality scientific information. This will improve the impact and relevance of research at a national level, while also strengthening national research and production mechanisms of journal publishing both in-print and online.


‘OA is the only way for Central American societies to reduce costs, improve access, and have alternative methods for the preservation of research material in our universities. Through OA we could have access to a wealth of scientific quality, and publish our journals in spaces that


permit greater visibility, without the onerous physical and economic barriers to provide access to information to those who need it most.’ This echoes the feeling across much of the region. Latin America has long been a supporter of open access and several countries in the region were very early in establishing OA mandates for their researchers, many with a particular focus on green OA.


Challenges and opportunities Looking ahead, Aleman sees opportunities for libraries in Nicaragua and elsewhere in the region to work in partnership with key players in the research system, to build the capacity of editors and researchers and manage the system of online publications. He also noted the need to develop strategies to improve traffic on the websites of journals in Latin America that allow a greater number of users to access scientific publications. There is also a need for strategies to improve the quality of scientific publication, maintaining or incorporating peer review, and working to achieve greater international recognition.


For Baldiezo of Bolivia, however, the challenge starts earlier: ‘In Latin America, particularly in Bolivia, there isn’t a culture of reading or publishing scientific literature. Therefore, we must attack this problem at the root cause; scientific reading should be promoted at school, and, of course, at university. There is a need to generate a scientific culture from childhood.’


Vanessa Fairhurst is a programme assistant in INASP’s Research Access and Higher Education area. Siân Harris is communications coordinator at INASP


. In addition to supporting information access,


consortium development and librarian training in Latin America, where it work with policymakers, INASP (www.inasp.info) also supports Latin American researchers through its AuthorAID (www. authoraid.info) project. Latin America Journals Online (www.lamjol.info), part of INASP’s Journals Online project, hosts 27 journals from the region.


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