The International Science Programme (ISP) at Uppsala University, has performed a study on the perception of Open Access in Sida´s seven partner countries in the bilateral research cooperation, Bolivia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, comprising twelve universities and institutions. A survey was sent to five categories: university management, researchers (PhDs), students (Masters and PhD students), librarians, and IT staff connected to the library. The total response rate was 40%. The result shows that the majority of the respondents in the partner countries perceive that they have good access to the scientific publications needed to carry out their research and that they don´t have any difficulties in accessing them. The challenges for accessing scientific publications that are mentioned are similar for all categories of respondents; unstable internet connection, power cuts, and insufficient funding, for example to access subscription journals. In some cases, there is also a misunderstanding that there is a fee involved to access Open Access publications. The majority are of the opinion that they have enough skills/knowledge to access the scientific publications they need. However, the librarians do not agree; they indicate that the researchers and students don´t know that they need more training in e.g. information search. The most common scientific literature used are Open Access journals and subscription journals. OpenAccess journals are also the most preferred venue to publish in. It seems like a minority of the universities have a policy for Open Access. Many are aware of the concept of “predatory publishers”, but only about half of the respondents know how to check if a journal is predatory. A majority of the universities indicate that they have apolicy to avoid predatory publishing. Many respondents are positive to building regional/national publishing platforms since the possibility to address local issues would be better on these kinds of platforms than in an international setting, which would increase the possibilities to have an impact on local/regional society and local/regional decision-making. A majority of the respondents are positive to data sharing, and they are even more so to others sharing data with them. When it comes to institutional repositories (IR) the replies vary; some universities have one, others don’t. Since some universities do not have an IR, the question on how often researchers and students search for literature in the IR varies between very often to never. A majority of the respondents say that the quality of the publication is taken into account when it comes to career enhancement. The types of publications most valued are Open Access journals and subscription journals. The country that stands out in a negative sense (less awareness of predatory publishers, OpenAccess, institutional repositories etc. and highest use of illegal resources), is Cambodia, which also is where the Sida program started most recently.

Most of the respondents agree that the collaboration with Sweden has had an immense impact on their scientific publishing. Swedish researchers have given guidance and training on where to publish and in which high quality journals. The collaboration has also given access to journals that otherwise would have been difficult to access from the home country. Based on the results of the survey, the following recommendations are proposed to Sida:

• Develop a Sida Open Science policy.

• Implement measures in creating more awareness in the discovery and acquisition of academic literature and scholarly communication in general.

• Train the trainers.

• Encourage further policy development regarding promotion policies and how to avoid predatory publishers.

• Continued help to negotiate affordable prices for publishing.

• A bibliometric study of the publications.

• Future studies on universities policies regarding promotion and Open Access.

Moreover, it seems like Cambodia needs particular support, in all aspects, especially when it comes to predatory publishing. Also, Bolivian respondents appear to need more support than the East African ones regarding many issues in the survey.