1. The End of the Beginning
Dr Simon J E Taylor, Coordinator & Reader in Computer Science, Modelling & Simulation Group, Brunel University London

2. What is an e-Infrastructure?
Networks of powerful distributed Information and Communication Technologies
High speed research communication networks
Computational resources (grids, clouds, etc.)
Software services
Data services (data sources, scientific literature)
Sensors

3. What is a Science Gateway?
Simple web or mobile access to an e-Infrastructure

4. Can Science Gateways and e-Infrastructures Energise Science in Africa?
Open science commonly refers to efforts to make the output of publicly funded research more widely accessible in digital format to the scientific community, the business sector, or society more generally (OECD 2015)
Open Science has many potential benefits for Africa in terms of innovation, knowledge transfer and raising the profile of African research across the world
ICT is a key foundation to Open Science
Energise Open Science in Africa with Science Gateways and e-Infrastructures

5. The Sci-GaIA Vision for Open Science – An Open Science Commons in Africa

6. Sci-GaIA Outputs – WP1 Support
Create educational materials (124)
Survey e-Infrastructure usage (>30)
Maintaining compliance with other international efforts through the Africa & Arabia Regional Operations Centre (AAROC) and EGI Cloud

7. Sci-GaIA Outputs - WP2 Community
Create a new community of service developers and end users (213)
Support new and emerging communities of practice (15 CoP, 35 Champions)

8. Sci-GaIA Output - WP3 Services
Create backbone for the Open Science Platform
Open Access Repositories (5, 4 DOI Prefixes)
Science Gateways (7)
e-Infrastructures
African Policy Management Authority (IdFs/eduGAIN) (3)
Strength and expand Science Gateway and e-Infrastructure related services
New services and applications
(19)
(30)

9. Sci-GaIA Outputs - WP4 Dissemination & Training
Disseminate our work
The website ( (>100 Media)
The events ( (29 events - all slides available; many videos)
The Winter School
The e-Research Hackfests (4)
Italy (x2)
Nigeria
Ethiopia
Infrastructure Course
NRENs (1), IdF (1)
The Sci-GaIA Champions (35)
All materials free to use

10. Community of Practice Champions Educational materials
The End of the Beginning
A Virtuous Circle – The Open Science Champions
Community of Practice Champions
Educational materials
Training
Service Development
Open Science Commons
e-Research Hackfests

11. We will seek to continue to support the Champions on their journeys
The End of the Beginning
Open Science Champions
We will seek to continue to support the Champions on their journeys
Key actors to develop, influence and energise science in their Communities of Practice through Open Science and ICT

12. The End of the Beginning
e-Research Hackfests
We will seek to continue Open Science training via e-Research Hackfests
Partnerships across Africa and beyond to develop scientific capacity in Open Science and potentially general research training

13. We will seek to continue to develop the Open Science Commons
The End of the Beginning
The Open Science Commons
We will seek to continue to develop the Open Science Commons
A socio-technical platform for Open Science; partnering with international associations to contribute to Open Science across the world

14. The End of the Beginning
International Development
We will seek to continue to work with e-Infrastructure initiatives to continue to develop African research infrastructure
Continue to provide case studies to demonstrate the value of Open Science and advanced ICT to society

15. Summary and conclusions
Open Science can benefit Africa
ICT is a key enabler of Open Science and can energise African Science
We have created an Open Science Platform and Commons to facilitate this
A Virtuous Circle of education, training and services – the Open Science Platform and e-Research Hackfests
4 e-Research events
35 Champions have been trained
24 new user applications and services
5 new open access repositories
11 communities of practice supported
We continue to work with AfricaConnect2, TANDEM and MAGIC to support community engagement, showcase success and develop new services and training materials
Find out more at
Thank you!