Origins
The establishment of the African Reproducibility Network (AREN) was initiated in August 2022 when a proposal to start a community-led initiative seeking to bridge the gaps in open science advocacy and adoption across Africa was developed and submitted by Emmanuel Boakye as his 2022 eLife Community Ambassador project.
The Reproducibility Network (RN) model was chosen due to its flexible but well-structured and unique grassroots approach which the UKRN had successfully implemented since its inception in 2019 to create a strong, highly collaborative, and well-supported local network of researchers and institutions coordinating to promote rigour, reproducibility and best research practices across the UK.
The adoption of this model by several other countries in Europe and other parts of the world was further evidence of how effective this unique approach was. The RN model therefore provided a strong foundation for AREN to build upon and adapt to suit the needs of the local research community in Africa and contribute to advancing open science across the continent and globally.
Discussions to organise AREN's first workshop in collaboration with Reproducibility for Everyone (R4E) began in September 2022 between April Clyburne-Sherin (then Executive Director of R4E) and Emmanuel. The workshop which was scheduled to happen in November 2022 at a local institution during the Africa Universitie's Day celebration unfortunately did not happen as planned. This was due to several unexpected impeding factors that were mostly outside their control and effectively led to a change in AREN's strategy and approach.
In May 2023, AREN’s working document which described our training strategy, community engagement strategy and 2-year roadmap was drafted by Emmanuel and shared with a few experts who reviewed and provided invaluable feedback. Below is the list of the experts who contributed (we apologise if we have missed anybody - please let us know):
Dr. Ailis O’Carroll (Head of Scientific Community Engagement at Explorium, National Science Centre, Ireland, and former eLife Community Manager)
Dr. Tony Ross-Hellauer (Leader, Open and Reproducible Research Group at Graz University of Technology and Senior Researcher (Open Science) at the Know Center)
Prof. Marcus Munafò (Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research Culture and Professor of Biological Psychology, University of Bristol and Chair, UKRN)
Pof. dr. Etienne Roesch (Professor of Applied Statistics & Cognitive Science, University of Reading and Institutional Lead for Open and Reproducible Research, UKRN)
The AREN community was opened in August 2023 through an announcement on the eLife website and several other platforms to allow researchers from the continent to join via a sign-up form. The form included a short survey assessing knowledge and awareness of open science principles and practices and interest in advocacy efforts to help us identify key focus areas and marginalised communities.
This was done concurrently with efforts to form a team to coordinate AREN’s activities and support our growing community. An email, to this effect, was sent to all eLife Community Ambassadors from Africa inviting volunteers to join the AREN team. This led to over 20 people expressing interest.
At the International RN meeting on Friday 15th September 2023, AREN became an officially recognised member of the Global Reproducibility Network (RN) community when Emmanuel briefly introduced our community and strategy.
From August 2023, Emmanuel facilitated the establishment of a core team which was finally formed in October 2023 (after several attempts) when Lamis Elkheir joined as the Training Lead, later getting appointed as Co-Director in early 2024 when it became a team of two. Below is the list of the first core team members and their roles:
Emmanuel Boakye - Lead/Community Manager
Marion Nyaboke - Organizing (joined in August 2023, left the team in early 2024 after starting her PhD journey)
Roseline Dzekem Dine - Monitoring and Evaluation (joined in August 2023, left the team at the end of 2023 to fully focus on a new role)
Lamis Yahia Mohamed Elkheir - Training and Resource Development (joined in October 2023, appointed as Co-Director in early 2024)
In December 2023, we received funding of $4900 from the Open Research Funders Group (ORFG) to support our activities after applying to the first round of their Open Scholarship Seed Awards program in August of the same year. eLife Publications Ltd. also provided a small grant of $250 within the same period to support us through the efforts of Godwyns Onwuchekwa, the Head of Communities at eLife and Ailis O’Carroll, then the Community Manager at eLife. We have achieved much within a short period on a very modest budget thanks to the great and wonderful support (non-financial) from our partner organizations and several individual collaborators, evidence of the strong collaborative power Open Science creates.
Since our launch, AREN has evolved and will continue to evolve, growing remarkably within a short period. However, the one thing that will always remain is our commitment to ensuring researchers and institutions in Africa are well-equipped and supported to successfully transition and contribute to reproducible, open and best research practices locally and globally.