There has been a great deal of activity over the last 12 months within the global open science and open access communities. New strategies and approaches are being discussed to help support the global accessibility and transparency of research, to help enhance the recognition of societal impact of research, to ensure the openness of scholarly communications infrastructures, and to identify sustainable community-led publishing models. With

As a relatively new initiative and one, moreover, seeking to provide support for a diverse range of stakeholder groups across 22 different states, each with their own complex set of challenges and capacities, it can sometimes be difficult to know what to prioritise. This is especially true when it comes to Open Science – which encompasses a multifaceted array of concepts, approaches and techniques. That

As a small non-profit initiative with a big mission, it is important to ensure our activities are sustainable. That is why we are so grateful to all our sponsors, who help to ensure that we can continue to provide valuable localised resources and free capacity building activities for open science advocates across the Arab world, and also enable us to subsidise the Annual Forum registration

As preparations for the 3rd Annual Forum for Open Research (2024) start to gather pace – with just over 150 days to go until the Forum starts – we want to welcome and thank our first sponsors for their generous support for the event and their endorsement of our mission. Our first Platinum sponsor is IEEE “the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology

We are proud to announce our support of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information, reaffirming its commitment to fostering openness, transparency, and collaboration in research across the MENA region. The Barcelona Declaration, a landmark initiative in the global open research movement, outlines key principles aimed at advancing the accessibility and impact of research outputs. We are particularly proud of the Declaration’s commitment to fostering

Last week, we hosted our first coffee hour and drop in. We wanted a chance to talk to our community informally, to give an opportunity for people to come to us with their problems and their priorities (outside of formal, structured Q&A sessions in our regular community development activities). We decided to host the coffee morning hour on our community slack channel, a free service

With just 201 days to go before the 2024 Annual Forum, the 3rd in our series, we are very excited to announce the Call for Papers! The theme of this year’s conference is Transforming Knowledge into Action. We chose this theme to reflect the proactive growth which we have already seen across the Arab region, as more open science communities are established and more higher

The Annual Forum for Open Research in MENA has grown rapidly since its inception and gone from strength to strength. Our first event was held in Egypt in 2022, in partnership with the Egyptian Knowledge Bank. Our second was held in the UAE, in partnership with Khalifa University, the UAE Ministries of Education and Culture, and UNESCO. And we are excited to announce that the

Some of our team (our Director Emily, our Community Engagement Manager Nahil, and our Event Manager Lissette) visited beautiful Doha, in Qatar last week. It was fantastic to meet so many potential partners and discuss possible collaborations and future joint projects. Qatar is a regional leader in the promotion of Open Science, particularly with regards to Open Access (launching the first Open Access journals in

The Forum for Open Research in MENA is a community-led organisation with a clear mission: to support the advancement of Open Science in the Arab region by working with research communities across all 22 Arab states. An integral part of our strategy to achieve this goal is by building long-term partnerships with grassroots initiatives across the Arab world and providing them with the resources, infrastructure,