Shaping Quality Assessment and Open Science Practices in African Research

This advocacy report was produced as an output of the second edition of the LIBSENSE National Open Science Symposium in Nigeria - https://libsense.ren.africa/en/nigeria-open-science-symposium/The report addresses the urgent need to reform research assessment systems in Africa, criticising global ranking metrics for perpetuating academic inequality. It discusses the development of new evaluation systems emphasising intrinsic qualities over journal impact factors. The report highlights challenges faced by African researchers, including pay-to-publish models and closed-access publishing. It advocates for open access policies, shared scholarly publishing infrastructure, and promotion of indigenous knowledge research. The report calls for a shift to not-for-profit indexing services, reforms in recognition systems, and urges stakeholders to contribute to shaping new quality assessment policies aligned with open science practices in Africa.