Benefits Of Open Access: Access To Evidence

"As an academic who focuses on the underrepresentation of global South in global knowledge production, I want to ensure that my research can be accessed and used by the widest possible audience.   

"Open access is particularly important when we talk about decolonising the curriculum and knowledge. It plays a central role in making knowledge more equitable and in minimising the knowledge gap between the academics and scholarly communities of the global South and global North. This embodies the values that I am committed to, both academically and personally.  

"Much of my recent work has focused on the Rohingya crisis, one of the major humanitarian crises of the current time. This publication was based on evidence from a British Academy funded study to understand the experience of violence and loss of dignity among the Rohingyas in Bangladesh and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Afghanistan.  

"The term ‘dignity’ is frequently used in international human rights conventions but without much clarity about what it means. This paper offers a bottom-up understanding of dignity, enabling us to view dignity through the lens of the affected, vulnerable and victimised people.  

“It is argued that, for effective and sustainable resolutions for these vulnerable groups, such a view can inform national, regional and international policymakers, allowing them to become conscious of dignity from the perspective of the displaced people.  

"Making this research open access meant it would be available to a wider audience in Bangladesh - and other parts of the global South who host refugees - who would otherwise not be able to access it because of organisational/institutional capacity or financial inability.  

"It is vitally important for academics; policy makers; local communities; think tanks and other research organisations across the world to have free, immediate, online access to research evidence that can help them build sound policies to improve the lives of refugees and other vulnerable groups."