<p>In cities around the world, building upwards is the pinnacle of urban development. Densification in many cities is a powerful force for vitality, creativity, increased productivity and prosperity but can also lead to congestion and overcrowding if mismanaged. What could be achieved if we view dense informal settlements in Africa through a fundamentally different lens?</p>
11.03.2019
<p>China’s programme of innovation-driven development, underpinned by research and technology, has placed new demands on the Chinese scientific community. What role for open access – and the Europe-led Plan S programme?</p>
25.02.2019
<p>City planners and local governments are increasingly expected to deliver on sustainable development policies such as Agenda 2030, but in many cases the data needed to assess and track progress are lacking. We found out how a team of early-career researchers funded through the LIRA 2030 Africa programme are looking to local communities to change that.</p>
20.02.2019
<p>The Europe-led ‘Plan S’ initiative for Open Access scientific publishing has been warmly received in South Africa, with the National Research Foundation expressing ‘in principle’ support. Yet South Africa already has compliant local solutions embedded within the research funding landscape, says Professor Robin Crewe.</p>
15.02.2019
<p>Open Access publishing is more widespread in Latin America than in any other region of the world, and continues to grow. We sat down with CLACSO’s Open Access Advisor Dominique Babini to find out why.</p>
05.02.2019
<p>As the Plan S initiative to open up scholarly publishing gains momentum, we speak to Luke Drury, lead author of the ALLEA (ALL European Academies) Response to the Plan.</p>
31.01.2019
<p>Air pollution is associated with 670,000 premature deaths in Africa each year, but action on controlling pollution has been hampered by a lack of awareness and information on the pollution hotspots. In this story, we find out how a citizen science project working in Nairobi, Kenya, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, aims to change that.</p>
30.01.2019
<p>Following the launch of Plan ‘S’ — a radical initiative to ensure that all scientific publications resulting from publicly funded research are made freely available — we spoke to Robert-Jan Smits, Open Access Envoy of the European Commission, who’s spearheading the Plan’s development.</p>
23.01.2019
<p>Annual flooding in the city of Abidjan has a potentially deadly side-effect: an increase in the incidence of water-borne diseases such as leptospirosis. In this story, we find out how researchers are getting out of their labs to help communities reduce the risks of infection for the long term.</p>
19.10.2018
<p>Providing clean energy to urban informal settlements in Africa is a huge challenge. In this story, we follow the joint effort of scientists working across three African countries to produce the knowledge required to get households to adopt clean energy.</p>
28.08.2018
