The extended article by Roux and de Beer entitled“Towards quality science 2: The role of strategy, vision and quality” is one of the most thoughtful recent contributions to key issues in science policy in South Africa, and is to be welcomed. They rightly plead for a deeper and wider debate on the ways in which scholarship and science should be fostered in the country, and linked to national development in the widest sense.

They frame their argument in the domain of how words (policy language) relate to actions (achieving laudable goals), an issue currently of decisive importance for the country. They ask that commonly used code-words be deconstructed and premises re-examined. We agree…….

Roux and De Beer are particularly concerned about the politicisation of scholarship/science and the centralisation of its governance. They detect both of these trends in two major policy documents issued respectively by the NRF and ASSAf. We write here on the stance taken towards the 2006 Consensus Report by ASSAf on the publishing of scholarly articles in research journals in and from South Africa.

The authors in introducing ASSAf do not mention that (unlike the NRF) the Academy is not a government agency, but (despite its statutory nature) a multidisciplinary voluntary association of senior academics nearly all drawn from higher education institutions, and across all disciplines, especially across the supposedly critical divide between the natural sciences and the humanities (see www.assaf.org.za). All Members of the Academy are scholars, including all members of its Council. It is to be expected, when scholars have to work cooperatively across major disciplinary lines, that best-possible ‘compromises’have to be made in their approach to recommending general science policy for the nation; they cannot present a collection of mutually incompatible mono-disciplinary perspectives to policy-makers, nor can they avoid generalising in many matters provided that enough room is left in the proposals to take care of most divergences that apply to particular disciplines. In some instances, the Academy is in fact examining how these divergences can be accommodated in policy, such as the in the cases of the recently published consensus study on Clinical Research and the current consensus study on the role and future specifically of the Humanities.

It is in this context that the key charges of politicisation and centralisation made against ASSAf’s policy proposals for scholarly publishing in South Africa must be assessed. The goals and objectives of the Academy’s Scholarly Publishing Programme have moved beyond the list quoted from the 2006 Report, and readers need to familiarise themselves with the many current elements of the programme in order to judge whether the approach is ‘top-down, centralising’ or ‘bottom-up, constituency-based’, and whether the charge levelled by Roux and De Beer that the Academy is presuming a role for itself, can be justified. In this latter context, it must be asked what roles any national science Academy may in fact ‘presume’ for itself if it is to have any meaningful function? As a non-governmental organisation comprising about 350 senior academics, must all its initiatives be strictly bottom-up, or can it be pro-active, knowing while it takes action that it must retain the confidence of its well-informed membership, as well as the broader intellectual community?

Roux and De Beer are surely aware that ASSAf uses academic approaches to policy-making whenever this is possible. ASSAf Panels are deliberately constituted as multi-perspective groups of scholars who examine and weigh evidence, and must seek a consensus position on their findings and recommendations. Draft consensus reports are multiply and independently peer-reviewed. Nothing is contextfree, as Roux and De Beer assert, and policy-recommending consensus positions are often couched in language that will be aligned with that used in public policy, no surprise there. The discipline-grouped evaluation of South African journals seen by Roux and De Beer as intrusive, topdown regulatory devices, in practice involves multiple, independent peer review, and a consensus report is prepared by a panel of peers. The emphasis is on improvement and support, not on restriction and top-down control of the local journals. Suggesting that such reviews would be better done by disciplinary associations is a debatable proposal; such associations have existed for many years and have rarely, if ever, spontaneously performed such reviews – should they now be ‘forced’ to do them, by centralising policy? Could such reviews in any case be regarded as disinterested?

The ASSAf consensus study on Scholarly Books contained a lengthy and critical treatment of peer review, and the Academy is not ‘mindless’ in its promotion of this form of ‘quality promotion’ as one of the key measures to achieve a number of academic goals. Its approach to bibliometric analysis is also cautious and considered, favouring discipline-and context-specific comparisons, the use of other impact measures, and a constant recognition of what citation analysis really is and how much and how little) it can tell us. ASSAf has launched the SciELO-SA platform for the subsidised open access e-publishing of as many South African scholarly journals as possible, as part of a developing-country indexing system that will complement the dominant ‘Web of Knowledge’(ISI) system, but extend the analysis beyond article citations to new metrics of regional/national impacts. It can also begin to address some of the language-of-publication issues that inhibit a truly global knowledge environment.

When it comes to the allegation of the ideological contamination of ASSAf recommendations, there appears to us little wrong with asking for “national progress and welfare”, “participatory policy-making”, and working “for the benefit of [...] civil society in general”.

We are intrigued by the ‘deconstruction’ of such phrases in academic discourse, but would then also ask that many phrases used by Roux and De Beer be similarly deconstructed.

The proposal mentioned above, of peer review of discipline-grouped journals by national disciplinary associations, can be deconstructed as a preference for ‘letting the foxes decide on henhouse design’. In fact, we could analyse many other positions taken by the authors in terms of pre-existing ideological positions, such as those denying links between S&T activity and the economy, the problematising of the criterion of originality in research publication, and many others.

In summary, Roux and De Beer have done us a service, but the conversation must continue and be refined, and ultimately they need to justify their title “Towards quality science 2: the function of strategy, vision and policy” in terms of how the discursive interplay of scholarly ideas can practically enable a state wisely, to use its resources for the benefit of all citizens.

This article and further responses can be viewed at www.litnet.co.za (“Menings en Opinies – Akademies – Gespreksruimte”)

From almost every corner of the Anglophone world, the complaint is the same: “The Humanities are under threat”. I use the qualifier because, sadly, my ability to access other language worlds – beyond  the Dutch-Afrikaans link – is limited.*

The question is what is to be done to recover and revive the Humanities?

Research and deliberations into ASSAf’s own Consensus Report on the Humanities in South Africa is well under way and the hope is to issue a preliminary report in late October, 2010. My own view of this issue is framed by an understanding of political economy – the rise of neo-liberal economics has emphasized economic growth and efficiency and, in this particular universe, the Humanities have no place ( the State of Science in South Africa, pg 210). This is a fallacy, of course. Take the creation of jobs. In this country alone, right now, one of the strongest areas of economic growth is Afrikaans cultural production – most of this is both creates jobs and pushes economic growth.

But this ignores a series of issues into which the Humanities can shed light – the planetary crisis – known as ‘Climate Change’ – which is generated by mindless economic growth is perhaps the most obvious example. Another example, of course, is the financial crisis of late-2009: here, reckless speculation on money markets helped to generate the most severe financial crisis for 80 years and raised serious questions about the discipline of Economics which remain to be addressed.

But re-igniting interest in the Humanities (which for these purposes includes the Social Sciences) cannot be the responsibility of academies and of Blue Ribbon Panel-types alone. The responsibility falls upon us all – even upon Natural Scientists many of whom have a deep appreciation for the importance of the Humanities but, as the battle for resources in academia has intensified over the past three decades, have turned away from what we might call a ‘dual loyalty’ to intellectual life.

It is certain so that in many instances the Humanities are themselves to blame for the reversal in their fortunes. But the test of their viability should be quality and excellence, through peer-review, not whether they can generate economic growth.

Writing in London’s The Guardian, on these issues, the acclaimed journalist, Simon Jenkins, Scientists may gloat, but an assault is under way against the arts (an article by Simon Jenkins, 25 March, 2010; The Guardian) recently issued a warning to Natural Scientists. Any hope they might have that sweeping the Humanities to the corners would benefit them, was a risky proposition. For one thing, budgetary savings might encourage successive generations of politicians and bureaucrats that further cuts could be made in research funding – this would certainly come from the Natural Sciences.

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* Incidentally, in 2009, the Dutch issued a Blue-Ribbon report called “Sustainable Humanities”.

The Academy is made up of researchers wanting to benefit society through their research. Libraries play a crucial role in this endeavour.

During Library Week we acknowledge the role that libraries play in the production of research. Whereas the internet at large provides general information resources, libraries provide authoritative information resources such as books, journals and access to academic electronic resources.  Click here to read more about SALW2010.

However, the level of acceptance of these clinical trials in these communities is not always smooth sailing. Some of the main issues include: volunteering vs ‘guinea pigs’, re-imbursement and ethical aspects. Some communities, despite being fully informed, regard being reimbursed for volunteering in these trials as a form of coercion to join them.  Others regard volunteers of these trials as guinea pigs. To address these issues communities are always reassured through communuty meetings and education.

 SciELO focuses on developing countries where few end users have access to traditional peer-reviewed academic journals either online or in print form. Access to journals is subscription-based and can be very expensive. Only certain libraries carry them, meaning that there have been severe restrictions in accessibility and affordability up to this point. The Open Access platform for these journals aims to combat these restrictions, while simultaneously enhancing the international visibility of South African research.

Why go Open Access?

Open Access publishing allows research literature comprising academic peer-reviewed journals, conference papers and theses to be placed in an online portal from which they can be downloaded for use. The authors do not have to pay any type of publishing fee. However, it is important to realise that open access by no means equates to ‘self-publishing’ – all articles conform to the traditional process of journal publishing, entailing critical reading by several peer-reviewers who ensure that a rigorous standard of research is upheld. Open Access publishing merely makes these research results available and affordable to a wider audience.

Four journals to be uploaded to SciELO SA

The South African Journal of Science, published by the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), is the first of a number of leading existing peer-reviewed journals to be fully Open Access on the SciELO platform. Other scientific journals which are in the process of being uploaded are Koedoe, the South African Journal of Education, and HTS: Theological Studies.

Selection and Quality Control

Journals selected to be part of SciELO South Africa must first go through a rigorous process of quality appraisal, in which journal accreditation by the Department of Education is considered, along with IBSS and ISI rankings and peer-reviewing processes. This will ensure that the most reliable, credible and innovative research by South Africa’s top researchers will be available in full to any person with internet access and the desire to learn, at no cost. Actual usage by scholars and scientists is monitored by the indexing system in various ways, including journal impact factors, and article citation and download statistics.

From Brazil to South Africa

The implementation of this open and freely accessible online journal platform has been pioneered by the Scientific Electronic Online Library (SciELO) project, based in Brazil. Fully indexed, it has been successfully implemented in eight countries, mostly in Latin America, with others being in the developmental phases. SciELO South Africa is the first site of this growing system on the African continent. The initiative is led by Susan Veldsman, a specialist in the field of Open Access and Director of the Scholarly Publishing Unit at the Academy of Science of South Africa. She has been working in the information science sector for over twenty years, with a recent focus on Open Access journals.

The new societal demands have resulted in a huge shift in terms of who is funded for further studies, putting the humanities in a somehow unpopular position in attracting funding for those students that would like to pursue studies in social sciences and humanities. A few questions have been asked: Do Humanities matter? Is there a future for the Humanities?