This year’s 3rd Annual Forum for Open Research in MENA was a huge success, thanks to our exceptional host partner (the Qatar National Library) and our brilliant speakers. As we work to publish the recordings from this year’s sessions, we’re excited to share some highlights from this year’s conference.
With 21 sessions, 67 speakers, and 1,457 delegates from 89 countries (representing 760 institutions) across the world – this was a truly rich event filled with valuable insights, allowing delegates to share ideas, discuss challenges and exchange solutions.
The event was further enriched with two outstanding workshops on the final day for in-person delegates, one for librarians offering an in-depth exploration of how to set up institutional repositories, and the other offering a valuable overview of best practises for engaging with open science in scholarly communications.
But alongside the scientific programme, we also had a number of other additions to the schedule, including our first Annual General Meeting (to establish the community’s objectives for the coming year and elect a temporary Executive Committee) and a Signing Ceremony (to welcome new member organisations joining FORM). We also included a tour of the strikingly beautiful Education City Mosque and held our Gala Dinner at the fabulous Museum of Islamic Arts in central Doha.
The overarching message of this year’s Annual Forum was the prioritisation of communication, collaboration, and localisation to ensure the successful advancement of open science policies and practises in the Arab region’s research communities and research institutions:
- The need to communicate clearly and effectively with each other and with our stakeholders, and the importance of ensuring the Arab voice is visible and heard in global discussions.
- The need to collaborate as individuals, as institutions, as communities and countries – within our local environment and as a region.
- The paramount importance of localising discussions, activities, outputs, tools and solutions relating to open science, of encouraging innovation and adaptation to develop processes and policies for individual communities and the region as a whole.
These priorities have also informed our own objectives for the coming year, as we focus on how best to help empower local stakeholders to establish and address local priorities in a manner appropriate to the needs and priorities of their research communities; how we can facilitate the development and implementation of open science policies and practises in research institutions across the region; and what we can do to support the amplification of equitable production of, and equitable access to, research in and from the Arab States.
Download our event report here to learn more.
