How can Africa predict and respond to the next pandemic? How can access to accurate news and research be ensured in all African languages? Can African heritage be digitized to preserve it for future generations? Can AI be used to build a better future for Africa? 

Answering these questions requires the very latest computational research methods. But do African researchers have access to the data they need? Does copyright law help or hinder the Right to Research (R2R)?

EIFL is co-organizing a week of debates on copyright and access to knowledge with policymakers, researchers, legal experts and activists from across Africa.

The programme takes place in two cities (in-person and online participation): 

• Pretoria: 23-24 January 2023. Venue: Future Africa, University of Pretoria. See the provisional programme. 
• Cape Town: 26-27 January 2023 Venue: Law Faculty, University of Cape Town (UCT). See the provisional programme. 

In addition to plenary sessions, there are workshops on open licensing of government information, Freedom of Panorama, and Making the Copyright Amendment Bill work in South Africa. Learn to edit Wikipedia at an edit-a-thon!

Check out the conference flyer here.

About

'A Right to Research in Africa?' is facilitated by Black Stripe Foundation. Conference partners include Future Africa, UCT Intellectual Property Unit, Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law, American University Washington College of Law, South Centre, EIFL, Masakhene, Wikimedia Foundation. 

'A Right to Research in Africa?' is part of the international project ‘Contributing to Public Interest Copyright Policy at WIPO: Promoting Access to Knowledge and the Right to Research', supported by Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. EIFL is a project partner, coordinating the project’s advocacy efforts in Africa.