Bristol University Press signs Africa Charter for Transformative Research Collaborations

Bristol University Press has become the first publisher to sign the Africa Charter for Transformative Research Collaborations.

Created with some of Africa’s key higher education and science constituencies, the charter aims to ensure that African scholars and institutions are recognised for their scientific efforts. It sets out key principles and aspirations for fostering transformative research collaborations with the continent for research institutions, funders, assessment bodies, governments, international science bodies and publishers.

The charter is facilitated by the Perivoli Africa Research Centre (PARC) at the University of Bristol which advances a rebalancing of the global science and research ecosystem by envisioning, modelling and championing a transformative mode of global North-Africa research collaborations. 

This commitment ties in with Bristol University Press’ own mission to transform global challenge research by "committing to, and actively soliciting, truly inclusive publishing, representative of the majority world". 

Julia Mortimer, journals and Open Access director, said ”We are delighted to be the first publisher to sign the charter, since it chimes so perfectly with our publishing aims and mission.”

Sarah Bird, managing editor at Bristol University Press, wrote a blog about the importance of the university signing the charter. She wrote: “As we all embark on a collective endeavour to acknowledge past injustices and reimagine a fairer society, we are glad to be working with colleagues across the global research infrastructure, through our active participation in the charter, to redress at least some of the imbalances that currently characterise both publishing and global science.”

The charter was shared at a fringe event of the Times Higher Education World Academic Summit in September 2023 in Sydney, Australia.