Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A national research data repository in an African Union member state aligning its metadata standards with AOSP interoperability guidance so datasets can be discovered and reused across the continent, not just within one country
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A single university's institutional repository is not itself the African Open Science Platform — AOSP is the continental coordinating initiative, policy body, and interoperability layer above individual repositories, not a repository itself
Editorial commentary
The African Open Science Platform (AOSP) is a continental open-science infrastructure and policy initiative that emerged from a 2016 pilot project of CODATA and the International Science Council, funded by South Africa’s National Research Foundation. Leadership of its second phase transitioned to the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), reflecting a deliberate move from an externally-seeded pilot to African-led governance.
What AOSP focuses on
AOSP’s strategy centres on four connected priorities: data interoperability, so that FAIR repositories serving different African research communities can be discovered and used together rather than sitting in isolated national silos; building and strengthening FAIR-compliant repositories aligned with African research priorities rather than defaulting to infrastructure designed for Northern research systems; training networks that build local open-science and data-management capacity; and policy coherence — working toward shared open-science principles and data policy across African Union member states rather than 54 separate national approaches.
Why it is explicitly framed around equity, not just infrastructure
AOSP positions itself around research sovereignty and equity rather than as a node feeding data to Northern-led infrastructure — a framing it shares with other Global South open-science initiatives such as AmeliCA in Latin America and SciELO. Data governance work under this framing engages with Indigenous and community data-sovereignty principles such as the CARE Principles, which foreground collective benefit and self-determination alongside the more infrastructure-focused FAIR Principles.
Why it matters for research collaborations
Institutions partnering with African researchers or repositories may need to align data-sharing and metadata practices with AOSP interoperability guidance, and should expect African Union-region data policy discussions to reference AOSP directly as the continental coordinating body — relevant when drafting multi-country data management plans or assessing a partner repository’s standing.
References
- africanopenscience.org.za; CODATA AOSP final report, 2018; African Academy of Sciences open-science strategy.
Also known as
AOSP · Africa Open Science Platform
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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