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Perspectives: Mohamad Mostafa on scholarly communications in UAE

Our Perspectives blog series highlights different members of our diverse, global community at Crossref. We learn more about their lives and how they came to know and work with us, and we hear insights about the scholarly research landscape in their country, the challenges they face, and their plans for the future.

As we continue with our Perspectives blog series, today, we meet Mohamad Mostafa, Crossref Ambassador in the UAE and Production Manager at Knowledge E. Mohamad is passionate about helping improve the discoverability of research through rich metadata. We invite you to read and listen to what Mohamad has to say!

Tell us a bit about your organization, your objectives, and your role

My name is Mohamad Mostafa, and I am the Production Manager at Knowledge E. Within our publishing program, we publish around 2000 articles across 13 titles that are fully Open Access, which is something that I really value.
In a world that’s moving faster than ever, the availability, quality, and pursuit of knowledge are fundamental for advancement. Knowledge E, in line with its vision of developing a more knowledgeable world, helps institutions advance the quality of their research; move towards teaching excellence; upgrade library technology, services, and practices; and advance scholarship through journal publication, management, and training. In other words, it works with higher education institutions, research centres, ministries, publishers, and scholars to solve our society’s most significant challenges.

I am also a Crossref Ambassador. As part of the ambassador program, we aim to raise awareness about Crossref services among librarians, publishers, editors, and authors in the Middle East and North Africa region. As part of this, we run workshops in English and Arabic, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive metadata and persistent identifiers. We also help research communities improve their understanding of how to use Crossref services. The importance of making regional research objects easy to find, cite and reuse encouraged me to join the ambassador program.

What is one thing that others should know about your country and its research activity?

A lot of regional research is being produced (in Arabic) and even without proper infrastructure (the lack of language support within the international publishing ecosystems such as peer review systems, indexes, citations databases, submissions systems, etc.) and the inadequate awareness about the various services (such as Crossref solutions) that can help with the discoverability and visibility of this research, the Arab region is increasingly recognised as a global leader in research outputs. Generally, these are some of the challenges and frustrations associated with the MENA (Middle East/North Africa) region.

Are there trends in scholarly communications that are unique to your part of the world?

In general, Open Access and Open Research are getting more and more attention in our region currently. We have recently launched the Forum for Open Research in MENA to raise awareness about all the new scholarly communications trends and support the Middle East and North Africa movement towards Open Science.
The Forum for Open Research in MENA (FORM) is a non-profit membership organisation supporting the advancement of open science policies and practices in research communities and institutions across the Arab world.
We believe the Arab world has the resources and capability to play a pivotal role in the global transition towards more accessible, sustainable, and inclusive research and education models. And we want to support all our research communities and stakeholder groups in the journey towards a more ‘open’ world. Our vision is to help unlock research for and in the Arab world. Our mission is to support the advancement of open science practices in research libraries and universities across the Arab world by facilitating the exchange of actionable insights and developing practical policies.
Our first Annual Forum was held in Cairo in October 2022 (as part of the global Open Access Week initiative). The event was a huge success, with over 1,100 delegates from over 48 countries across the globe. The next Annual Forum will be hosted in the UAE in October 2023, and details will be available shortly on our website.

How would you describe the value of being part of the Crossref community; what impact has your participation had on your goals?

I have been a Crossref ambassador for more than 5 years now, and I can really say that it has been a great experience being part of such an amazing and collaborative community. We got the chance to interact with different publishers and service providers and participate in different Crossref annual events. It’s also perfectly aligned with our vision of supporting Open Research.
Recently, we have delivered a series of three Arabic webinars that offered basic metadata information and advanced insights about the role of metadata and how Crossref services can help an institution. These webinars have been well received by the community of regional publishers, university presses, and librarians. Dozens of questions have been answered, and technical enquires have been resolved. It was a great experience, and it was good to see that kind of interest in our community. Also, more educational webinars are yet to come!

For you, what would be the most important thing Crossref could change (do more of/do better in)?

Language is still a barrier in some parts of the Arab region, so producing more educational content in different formats (webinars, flyers, videos with subtitles, etc.) would be highly appreciated here. 

Which other organizations do you collaborate with or are pivotal to your work in open scholarship?

We work closely with ORCiD and invite them to our events, support DOAJ via our charitable Foundation, and rely heavily on PKP products mainly the Open Journal Systems (OJS) with plans to expand and start using Open Monograph Press (OMP).

What are the post-pandemic challenges/hopes you are facing and how are you adapting to them/what you’re looking forward to?

We aim for more face-to-face meetings and onsite workshops/conferences as the world opens up again. In addition, we have launched the Forum for Open Research in MENA (FORM) (a non-profit membership organisation supporting the advancement of Open Science policies and practices in research communities and institutions across the Arab region.)
A catalyst for positive action, we work with key stakeholders to develop and implement a pragmatic programme to facilitate the transition toward more accessible, inclusive, and sustainable research and education models in the Arab region. Our driving focus is on building the resources, the membership, the organisational structures, and the broader community to support the advancement of Open Science in research communities and research institutions across the Arab world.

Following the huge success of our 2022 Annual Forum (held in Cairo with the support and endorsement of UNESCO and the Egyptian Knowledge Bank), which attracted over 1100 delegates from 48 countries, our 2023 Annual Forum will be held in Abu Dhabi in the UAE. For more details about the event and the call for papers, see our website: https://forumforopenresearch.com

What are your plans for the future?

Keep working with different global and regional stakeholders to help the transition of our region towards Open Science.

Thank you, Mohamad!