The Global Access Program is based on three pillars—increasing community awareness, supporting and developing infrastructure and lowering financial barriers to access. These pillars were defined and prioritized by a working group of DataCite members, including current DataCite members from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. As a first step, through the Global Access Program, DataCite will hire three new team members based in Africa, Latin America and Middle East or Asia. Staff based in these regions will be best placed to understand the regional needs and opportunities, as well as delivering and refining the program.
DataCite is a global membership community that shares a common interest: to ensure that research outputs and resources are openly available and connected so that their reuse can advance knowledge across and between disciplines, now and in the future.
The program conceptualization was led by the DataCite Membership Model Advisory Group (MMAG) and as noted by Mohamed A. Ba-Essa, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), “One of the main obstacles that hold many research institutions from providing research output-related services is the question of how and where to start. The lack of understanding of the global research ecosystem and the current education opportunities is a more significant barrier than the cost”.
The program is made possible by Grant 2022-316573 from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
DataCite is committed to taking a proactive role in supporting communities beyond the Global North to develop and adopt open infrastructure through a comprehensive and collaborative approach. As part of this commitment, its goal is to actively address the different challenges that currently prevent organizations from fully participating in and benefiting from our infrastructure services.
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