AREN Gateways Program to Connect Research Communities Across 10 African Countries During International Open Access Week 2026 

The African Reproducibility Network (AREN) is relaunching its grassroots engagement initiative, the AREN Gateways Program (formerly Open Bridges Initiative), with 28 researchers from 10 African countries and 23 institutions preparing to organise local events during International Open Access Week, 19–25 October 2026.

The AREN Gateways Program is a grassroots engagement programme designed to promote inclusive research reform across Africa. The program, which was co-developed with AREN’s regional coordinators, is intended to create opportunities for local research communities to explore emerging approaches such as open science, discuss challenges within their research environments, and help shape the priorities and resources needed to support sustainable context-sensitive adoption.

The hybrid events in October will use AREN's introductory resource, “Unveiling the Limitations: Rethinking Traditional Publishing,” to initiate conversations about the current research publishing system and emerging alternatives. The resource has also been translated into French and Arabic, supporting engagement across a wider range of African research communities. The upcoming sessions will be led by AREN’s Local Network Leaders (LNLs) and members of the 2026 LNL trainee cohort, who will serve as locally embedded facilitators and connect the discussions to the experiences and priorities of their research communities.

This year's pilot represents the first stage of the relaunched AREN Gateways Program, and will provide an opportunity for AREN to learn from diverse research communities and use their feedback to strengthen the model and inform its integration into future Local Network Lead (LNL) cohorts and broader community engagement across Africa.