Chemistry Central Blog
A chance meeting spurs Green Chemistry initiatives in Africa
A recent article in Science (Subscription required) on collaborations between scientists in developed countries and African colleagues highlights how Green Chemistry has caught the imagination of Ethiopian chemists.
A chance meeting between Professor Martyn Poliakoff (Nottingham University) and Nigist Asfaw (Addis Ababa University) in 2003 has led to a fruitful collaboration and help in obtaining equipment. The work has allowed the groups to look at the use of plants indigenous to Ethiopia as a source of chemicals, and energy intensive drying processes can be carried out by utlising the sun - an abundant source at no cost.
The Royal Society of Chemistry, in 2006, launched its Archive for Africa with Dr Simon Campbell, RSC President, saying "We believe that free access to the RSC Archive will make a major contribution towards building scientific capacity." We believe so too.
It is clear that, if researchers in developing countries are to attract the attention of an international audience (that is considerably better funded and equipped) they must be given access to all of the research they require. What the RSC did was a major step forward for the continent, but it does not address the fact that other researchers around the world, even in relatively rich countries, often have no access to this content either.
Open access publications offer an excellent opportunity to level the playing field, allowing everyone who wants access to gain access. What is more, Chemistry Central and BioMed Central routinely waive the article processing charge associated with their publications for authors from countries in the low and lower-middle income listings of the World Bank.
Posted by Bryan Vickery at 14:55 Comments (2)
I interviewed Martyn Poliakoff many years ago for a New Scientist feature on his supercritical fluids research. By chance, the MD of Thomas Swan saw the published feature, contacted Martyn and he and the company have collaborated ever since. Scientific advance and serendipity are ever so persistent.
db
Posted by David Bradley on July 13, 2007 at 08:20 AM BST #
Scientific journals going open access (how is this accomplished?) appears to be the singular best way to quickly have 3rd world researchers contributing towards solving 1st and 3rd world problems alike. An open access article is three times more likely to be cited than one published in a charge journal. It stands to reason that a third world researcher would also be 3x as likely to become part of an interdisciplinary research group if *given* access to a library of relevant papers.
Such a simple way to bolster societal R + D output hasn't been generally implemented because of...publisher politics?!
Posted by Phillip Huggan on July 25, 2007 at 08:25 PM BST #