Category Archives: oa.lmics

A CALL TO ACTION TO REFORM GLOBAL HEALTH PARTNERSHIPS – Consortium of Universities for Global Health

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“The global health enterprise has improved the well-being of people. However, structural inequities persist within the sector. This contributes to inequality and wholly insufficient impacts to address the Sustainable Development Goals.   

Power imbalances are embedded across funding, political power, management capacity and technical capabilities The current pandemic which has highlighted, not created these inequities, is an opportunity to truly acknowledge these gaps and build forward better to rectify them. This must include ensuring that partnerships between institutions in high income countries (HICs) and those in low and low middle-income countries (LLMICs) are equitable, effective, and that most of the benefits from those arrangements accrue to the LLMIC institution. Collaborations rooted in respect, honesty, equity, and commitment to outcomes that are aligned with the needs of the LLMIC partners are essential to reforming global health. Such partnerships, across sectors, will be much more effective in addressing the development challenges before us.

We the undersigned support the following actions the global health community should collaborate on to improve the health of people and the planet in an equitable and sustainable manner:

HIC institutions should provide free access to their academic libraries to their LLMIC partners

HICs should share their curricula with LLMIC partners, free of charge

Where possible, HICs should provide to their LLMIC partners free compatible computers, software and affordable, and reliable 3G broadband as requested

When students from HICs are participating in experiential learning opportunities in an LLMIC institution, agreements should be in place that provide tangible benefits sought the host institution. Host institutions should be compensated for any human resources and other assets utilized by hosting the HIC students. HIC institutions could provide their own trainers to build capacity in the host institution as directed by the host. This includes strengthening LLMIC management capacity.

Staff in LLMIC should be fully compensated for training students from HICs or supporting HIC led research projects

HIC institutions should provide training and mentorship in grant writing and grant applications

Research questions must be co-created in collaboration with the host institution/community/country.

HIC institutions should provide training in article writing and ensure fair and equitable authorship of research papers between the scientists from LLMICs and HICs who participated in the project

Research findings must be shared with equity, fairness and respect of the work provided between all collaborators from LLMICs and HICs who participate in the research

A plan to disseminate the research findings should be part of the design of the study proposal….”

The role of journals and journal editors in advancing global health research equity – Jumbam – – Anaesthesia – Wiley Online Library

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“Given the power they hold in the research process, journals and journal editors have a responsibility to ensure that the research they choose to publish and by extension research of value, does not perpetuate unjust and exploitative research practices. Just like most medical journals require institutional review boards for research involving human subjects [8], journals also ought to develop and adopt guidelines and standards that prevent unethical research practices like ‘parachute or helicopter’ research in LMICs. In the current issue of Anaesthesia, Morton et al. present a consensus statement on measures to promote equitable authorship in the publication of research from international partnerships in global health [9]….

The training of local graduate students, for example, should also be considered as an important objective in global health research partnerships between HICs and LMICs. Just as many global health funding proposals by HIC institutions now include costs for article processing charges for open access journal publications and the training for graduate students at HIC institutions, we recommend that global health funding opportunities also include costs for research capacity building for LMIC partners….”

Guest Post – APC Waiver Policies; A Job Half-done? – The Scholarly Kitchen

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“Most, if not all, open access publishers offer to waive publication charges (of whatever flavor) for researchers in lower and middle-income countries (LMICs) without access to funds to pay them. After all, no-one wants to see open access actually increasing barriers and reducing diversity and inclusion in direct opposition to one of its fundamental objectives. However, as an echo of the “build it and they will come” mentality, waiver policies may end up failing to achieve their intended outcome if they are poorly constructed and communicated to their intended beneficiaries. A recent study by INASP revealed that fully 60% of respondents to an AuthorAID survey had paid Article Processing Charges (APCs) from their own pockets, despite the widespread availability of waivers. This could be due to internal organizational bureaucracy but more likely to the lack of awareness and understanding of APC waivers and how to claim them.

A White Paper published jointly by STM and Elsevier’s International Center for the Study of Research in September 2020 on how to achieve an equitable transition to open access included a specific recommendation to make publisher policies on APC waivers more consistent and more transparent. The authors commented, “Even though this business model may turn out to be an interim step on the road to universal open access, it is likely to persist for several years to come and may unwittingly end up preventing much important research from reaching its intended audience.”…”

Can open access publishing be made ‘JUST’ for authors from low-middle income countries? – The American Journal of Emergency Medicine

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“OA applies the principles of ‘FAIR’ in its publishing model. Proposed in March 2016 and endorsed by the European commission and the G20, ‘FAIR’ is an acronym for ‘findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable’, intended to more clearly define what is meant by the term ‘open access’ and make the concept easier to discuss [5]. We wondered if the ‘FAIR’ concept can be supported by the philosophy of ‘JUST’ as well, to empower authors especially from the low and middle-income countries (LMICs).

J- Jargon friendly, U- Universal, S- Sharing, T- Transparent….”

Research4Life Landscape and Situation Analysis

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“This page summarises the findings of a landscape and situation analysis of trends in the research and scholarly communication landscape in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs).

The landscape analysis considers three levels of analysis:
• Firstly, it seeks to identify global megatrends relevant to research and international development.
• Then, it narrows the focus to key trends in research in and for LMICs.
• Finally it identifies the key trends in scholarly communication….”

Open access of psychological intervention manuals – Watts – 2020 – World Psychiatry – Wiley Online Library

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“In summary, only two studies (7%) reporting results of a psychological treatment for common mental disorders in LMICs provided citations to the exact manual used in the study, and only two (7%) provided open access to the manual.

Access to treatment manuals for psychological interventions is important for the replication and independent scrutiny of study results and for the dissemination of effective interventions.

Change is not only needed but also feasible. For example, two relevant RCTs of psychological treatments were released around the same time of the systematic review3 and were thus not included in our analyses. One included a reference to an online version of the exact manual used8, and the other offered access to a linked training programme to learn the intervention9.

Accessibility to treatment manuals is a key aspect of open science of psychological treatments. Mental health journals and research funders should consider setting up mechanisms that require authors of RCTs to make the psychological treatment manuals they used open access.”

Research and open access from low‐ and middle‐income countries – Newton – 2020 – Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology – Wiley Online Library

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“Open access publishing of scientific research could have a significant impact on science, development, and health in LMICs, but it does need support. Established publishing companies could do more to make papers accessible to researchers in LMICs and improve the immediacy of the research. Funders and philanthropic organizations should support the work they fund being open access. Authors should be encouraged to publish in open access journals or those journals that allow free access to research conducted in LMICs, or at least ensure that other researchers and communities have access to their findings for the benefit of communities in these areas.”

NGOs’ experiences of navigating the open… | F1000Research

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Abstract:  Grant-led consortia working in the global development sector rely on the input of local and national non-government organisations in low- and middle-income countries. However, the open access mandates and mechanisms embedded within grants and promoted by funders and publishers are designed almost exclusively with large universities and research institutions in mind. Experiences from the consortium of health research non-government organisations comprising the Communicable Diseases Health Service Delivery research programme show that implementing open access mandates is not as simple or frictionless as it initially appears.

 

NGOs’ experiences of navigating the open… | F1000Research

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Abstract:  Grant-led consortia working in the global development sector rely on the input of local and national non-government organisations in low- and middle-income countries. However, the open access mandates and mechanisms embedded within grants and promoted by funders and publishers are designed almost exclusively with large universities and research institutions in mind. Experiences from the consortium of health research non-government organisations comprising the Communicable Diseases Health Service Delivery research programme show that implementing open access mandates is not as simple or frictionless as it initially appears.