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,

As a cross-regional initiative established to provide localised resources and support for open science advocates and research communities, it is important we are accessible to all our stakeholders. We are therefore hugely excited to announce the long-awaited Arabic language version of the FORM website. Produced by our team of Arabic Open Science experts, we hope our new Arabic language website will make our work and

2024 is a very important year for FORM as we aim to grow our Community Development Activity series and develop specific types of events to benefit all our different stakeholders groups. We launched the Community Development Activity series in 2023, with 8 collaborative events organised in partnership with some of the most important and influential non-profit companies and NGO groups involved in Open Science around

One of our core goals is to support the development of “accessible and localized resources relating to the implementation of Open Science policies and practises” in higher education and research communities. The historic absence of a pan-regional open science vocabulary is one of the key challenges to the growth of Open Science practises faced by our research communities. It is crucial to the advancement of

Our mission is to support the advancement of Open Science policies and practises in research communities across the whole Arab region. We are therefore particularly excited to welcome the Libyan Authority for Scientific Research (LASR) as the newest member of the Forum for Open Research in MENA. LASR is the government agency responsible for promoting and supporting scientific research in Libya. The organisation’s activities include

We are delighted to welcome the Open Science Community Saudi Arabia (OSCSA) as our newest a member. Our members are institutions and organisations committed to advancing Open Science policies and practises within research communities across the Arab region, empowering researchers, librarians and policymakers to collaborate on activities, projects and resources that promote engagement with, and the generation of, open research – enabling them to better serve the

After an unprecedented volume of excellent submissions from researchers, librarians and policy makers from across the world, all keen to share their insights and experiences on the theme of Democratizing Knowledge: The evolution of open science ecosystems and communities in the Arab World, we have decided to expand our programme to include an additional day of online-only papers. The 2nd Annual Forum (2023) will take place

Our Call for Papers for the 2023 Annual Forum received so many excellent submissions from librarians, researchers, funders and policy makers across the region, along with leading open science solutions providers – we have decided to extend the Annual Forum and add a third day to the proceedings. The event will now start on the evening of the 22nd of October, with a Welcome Drinks