A pan-African home for open science
Founded as the Open Science Community Nigeria, our network is growing into a pan-African platform for open science. We connect researchers and institutions to share knowledge, tools, and opportunities across the continent.
Strengthen research capacity, promote responsible and transparent practice, and connect the people building Africa’s open science ecosystem — so that shared knowledge becomes the norm.
An open, equitable research ecosystem spanning all five African regions, where every researcher can access, contribute to and build on the continent’s knowledge.
Four pillars of our work
The programmes and advocacy that turn open science from an ideal into everyday practice.
Research
Support open publishing, preprints and reproducible methods.
Community
Connect researchers across Africa’s five regions.
Capacity
Training, mentorship and skills workshops for members.
Policy
Advocate for open science policy adoption across the continent.
From Nigeria to the continent
Key moments on the way from a single national community to a pan-African network.
- Apr 2022
OSCN founded and the GitHub repository created
- Jun 2022
Zenodo community created; 1st and 2nd talks delivered
- Aug 2022
Joined the International Network of Open Science & Scholarship Communities (INOSC)
- Jan 2023
Official website launched at oscnigeria.org
- Sep 2023
Incorporated as a corporate body on 15 September 2023
The principles we work by
Openness by default
Knowledge, tools and data are shared unless there is a clear reason not to.
Community-led
Direction comes from members and regional chapters, not the top down.
Equity across regions
Every one of Africa’s five regions gets a seat, a voice and support.
Reproducible by practice
We champion methods and results that others can check and build on.