For nearly a decade, AfricArXiv has been designed and managed to improve the visibility, accessibility, and preservation of African research and scholarly outputs. Throughout this journey, one lesson has become increasingly clear: sustainable open infrastructure must be owned and governed by the communities it serves.
Today, we are pleased to announce the next chapter of AfricArXiv.
Following the successful transition to independent infrastructure with DSpace, AfricArXiv is embarking on the development of a community-governed model designed to ensure long-term sustainability, transparency, and shared stewardship across the African research ecosystem.
Why Community Governance?
Research infrastructure is most resilient when responsibility is distributed. Rather than relying on a single institution, organization, or funding stream, community governance enables diverse stakeholders to collectively shape priorities, oversee operations, and contribute to long-term sustainability.
Our vision is for AfricArXiv to become a platform governed by and for the community it serves.
Who Can Participate?
We invite participation from:
- Universities and research institutions
- Academic libraries and library consortia
- National Research and Education Networks (NRENs)
- Scholarly and professional societies
- Open science organizations
- Repository and infrastructure providers
- Funding organizations
- Individual experts and community representatives
Proposed Governance Framework
The proposed model will establish a representative governance structure that enables participating organizations to contribute to strategic direction, operational priorities, and sustainability planning.
Participating institutions will be able to join governance bodies with defined responsibilities and voting rights on matters including:
- Strategic development priorities
- Infrastructure sustainability
- Community engagement activities
- Technical roadmap decisions
- Partnership development
- Policy and governance updates
The objective is not merely to build a repository, but to establish a trusted, mission-driven infrastructure serving the broader African scholarly communication ecosystem.
Technical Infrastructure
AfricArXiv is currently being re-established on dedicated infrastructure designed to support long-term sustainability, preservation, and interoperability.
The platform is being developed in collaboration with specialized infrastructure partners, including eScire for repository implementation and WindCloud for sustainable cloud hosting through its carbon-capture datacenter model.
Additional partnerships focused on preservation, metadata stewardship, repository interoperability, and community engagement are actively being explored.
An Open Invitation
We believe the future of African scholarly communication should be shaped collaboratively.
Whether you represent a university, research network, library, scholarly society, funding organization, infrastructure provider, or community initiative, we would welcome a conversation about how your organization can contribute to the future of AfricArXiv.
If you know of a suitable collaboration partner or would like to propose your own organization, please get in touch.
Contact: info@access2perspectives.org
Together, we can build an open, sustainable, and community-governed scholarly communication infrastructure that serves researchers across Africa and beyond.