SN 3 EP 9: Building Equitable Research Infrastructure For Africa With Datacités Matt Buys

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode Joy Owango sits down with Matt Buys, Executive Director of DataCite and a pioneering force in open research infrastructure. From his early days working across Africa to his current global leadership in persistent identifiers, Matt shares a powerful vision for making research outputs, especially from Africa and the Global South, more visible, accessible, and reusable. This conversation explores the importance of data interoperability, the role of community-led infrastructure, and what it takes to shift global recognition frameworks toward equity and inclusion in research.

Here Are the Key Things to Look Out For:

1. Infrastructure That Serves, Not Complicates
   Matt challenges the idea that tech should lead. Instead, he calls for infrastructure that’s simple, service-oriented, and designed around researchers’ real workflows not the other way around.

2. Recognition Beyond Journal Articles
   The episode dives into why research outputs like datasets, protocols, and software deserve equal credit and how persistent identifiers make that possible.

3. Equity Through Local Context
   Matt stresses the importance of building with local nuance. What works in Kenya might not work in South Africa. African institutions must lead in shaping infrastructure that reflects their realities.

4. The Power of Community-Led Open Infrastructure
   It’s not about one tool or one organization. It’s about partnerships, transparency, and collective effort. The episode explores how community-owned infrastructure can unlock lasting impact.

Episode Transcription

Intro:

Joy Owango:

Welcome to Mazumgumzo- African scholarly conversations, where we are joined by an expansive list of African policy makers, scholarly and science communication specialists, innovators, and tertiary institution leads who contribute to this realm of scholarly and science communication. I’m your host. Joy Owango, the Executive Director of the training center in communication, a capacity building trust based at the University of Nairobi, Faculty of Science and Technology in Nairobi, Kenya,

We have an exciting conversation lined up with a guest who is a globally recognized leader in open research infrastructure. Joining us is Matt Buys, the Executive Director of DataCite. Over the years, Matt has been at the forefront of ensuring that scholarly outputs remain discoverable, accessible, and reusable. We’re thrilled to have him on the show today to discuss DataCite’s impact, the future of persistent identifiers, and the evolving needs of the research community.

Matt, welcome to the podcast! It’s great to have you here.

Matt Buys:

Thanks for having me, Joy. It’s great to be here, and I think also to share with the viewers, we go way back and done a lot of work over the years, and it’s exciting to be chatting to you again and sharing some insights and the work that we do collectively as a community, as a global community, but also, most importantly in the context of the work that we’re doing in Africa and other emerging regions around the world.

Joy Owango:

Oh, yeah, you’re right. We do go way back. We first got into this intersection of scholarly communication and scholarly infrastructure in 2014, it’s now almost 11 years. And then we just spread out. You got into the PID ecosystem. We got into research capacity. Now we are also in the PID ecosystem, and we’ve just been learning from each other. So it is nice to have you here. It’s really nice to have somebody from home, and for the listeners, when I say from home, from Africa, who is making an impact globally and has an insight on what is happening, not only in Africa, but also from the Global South, in supporting and aiding in increasing the visibility of outputs coming out of those respective regions.

So you’ve had a remarkable career shaping open research infrastructure, particularly through your leadership in data cite. What inspired you to enter this space and as you transition and what are the key milestones or achievements that you are most proud of?

Matt Buys:

Yeah, I think it’s an interesting question. Obviously, certain careers take certain parts, and some is by chance. Some is by, I guess, sort of intentional steps. But if I go back to a bit of background in working in research, information services, and there was, the focus was on ensuring knowledge dissemination, access to information across Africa, and working with a number of different organizations, Scholarly Publishers around the world. But then interestingly, and this is some of the work that we started doing together, was working with different groups in Africa, specifically around research capacity and the ability to ensure that researchers that conduct really important research for the advancement of science and innovation globally, but on the ground in Africa, and so doing a lot of work there, and working with individual researchers and supporting capacity building really led me to the world of all, how does open infrastructure, how does open infrastructure support the recognition of visibility, particularly researchers on a global scale, and ensuring that credit is given where credit is due, and this is something that I’m really passionate about, is that ensuring that research that is conducted that forms part of the broader scholarly record is visible, accessible and citable on a global scale. And because we know that there’s so much technology transfer, there’s indigenous knowledge that really feeds into these important advancements of science in so many different areas, and it’s really important that we make sure that that is truly part of the scholarly record, but also importantly, alongside that, that we’re using or leveraging open infrastructure to work with policy stakeholders on a global level to really advance or change the recognition frameworks that we have on a global scale, so that it is incentivized for researchers to make sure that this is part of the the scholarly record and the recognition that can be provided.

Joy Owango:

Yeah, and this is how persistent identifiers come into play, because they are the unifying factor if you’re looking at the visibility of research outputs. They become essential across various types of research outputs. And what do you think is the biggest challenge in integrating them across the entire research life cycle? And how has Datacite worked to ensure PID enhances the discoverability and reusability of a wide of a wider array of resources.

Matt Buys:

Yeah. So maybe to reflect on how Datasite was founded in 2009 by the research community. For the research community, right? And so the focus here was on how do we ensure everything else beyond the journal article, beyond the what, I guess, at this stage, is where a lot of value is placed in the Recognition Framework. So the financial incentives are that, how do we make sure that that’s recognized and that’s visible and discoverable? And so over the years and right from our inception, we’ve registered DOIs across many different research outputs, predominantly in the beginning, it was gray literature and data sets, but we’ve grown to support over 30 different resource types, research outputs, and resources. And so this extends from data sets to physical samples that come out of the ground, so that they are recognized as part of scholarly record, to protocols to actual instruments that are used in this research, and so that’s been our focus. The challenge is that one, we need to work as a open community to build the technical services and systems that we have around the globe. So at Datasite, our entire code base is open source. Our data file is cc zero, so it’s really the value that we create or unlock is as a global community.

 And what I mean by that is it’s the connections and integrations that we have with all these different systems and services around the world that really is our collective shared value. And so building on that, I think one of the challenges that we have is trying to work with governments funders and to really incentivize and change where they place value and recognition, and so ensuring that things like the data that was collected on, say, malaria research in Africa is really rewarded as a key output, as part of this scholarly record, as opposed to placing too much emphasis on the journal article. I’m not saying that journal articles are bad. They are very good. They’re very good, succinct, good description of the research, and they go through a peer review process, which is very important. And so it’s not to say that we should disregard journal articles, but we should also have the ability to view and have the ability to access the entirety of the scholarly record. And so by doing that, we have the ability to assess or bring rigor to the scholarly record, meaning that we can verify the findings or the claims that are made in the in the journal article by accessing the data, by understanding the protocols that were employed, by understanding the software that was used, by understanding the instruments and their calibrations. These are all really important things to consider when we are evaluating research. And obviously I’m talking about this as this is very aspirational, but we do see this as a reality in many cases, and we’ve got great examples of communities and different research groups that are actually employing this and using this, we also see shifts in funding mechanisms, and we also seeing shifts, I didn’t mention earlier, in institutions, research institutions, in things like tenure and promotion reviews, where some committees are actually looking at, well, what Data Did you produce? What other things did you do as part of your research activities? Because you do a lot of different things, beyond the journal article, and how do we ensure that that’s part of the credit system and the framework that is employed.

Joy Owango:

And how does Data Cite engage with its community of researchers, institutions, and publishers to ensure that its infrastructure is responsive to their needs.

Matt Buys

Yeah. So obviously we are in open infrastructure. We work very closely with the community. We have various forums. So we have monthly open hours as an example, where people can join, and we gather insights there. We also engage directly with different stakeholders. In addition, we run various focus groups in certain areas, and we have things like open road maps, etc., to ensure that we are evolving and understanding the needs. There is a level of assessment of, well, what is our role? And so what I mean by that is we are open infrastructure, and so we are not there to provide necessarily, all the functionality throughout the entire kind of use case ecosystem is that there is place and value that can be created by others around open infrastructure, and that, for me, is really exciting, as if we can serve that role as open infrastructure, that we can help others create value and deliver value. That’s also really important. Obviously, we creating value for them, and as this chain of integrations and connections that we have across the ecosystem, that is important.

Joy Owango:

 I like the way you’re saying you’re not the panacea. You’re one of the various stakeholders that can support the ecosystem. And that is very important, because I’ve noticed that there’s a bit of a misunderstanding from stakeholders on what PID can do and the degree to which the type of PID can do. All right, so it’s really good to say that, you know, yes, this is what we can support the ecosystem with, and there’s still room for other ecosystems, other PID support, supporters or providers to fill in the blanks, because this is all about using open infrastructure to support the ecosystem, in improving, in improving, or in aiding the visibility of African research output, to make sure that The whole the whole research life cycle, is fair, the degree to which it needs to be fair, but it is fair so that it is as accessible as possible, and making us as competitive as possible with our partners in the Global North. I really, I really like that, and it’s good.

It’s a good thing you’re emphasizing on that it means that we it has, it means that we have stakeholders who need to take advantage of that leverage on that and say, Okay, what kind of PIDs ecosystems can we build on that will be interoperable with the existing ecosystems to support the academic community? So that’s a very good point. And as African institutions continue to strengthen their digital infrastructure, what opportunities do you see for deeper involvement in the global research ecosystem? And how can organizations like Data Cite help support and accelerate this growth?

Matt Buys:

Yeah, so I guess building on your previous point, which is exactly spot on, is that this is a community of communities approaches that we can’t do this in isolation. We need to work it together collaboratively, and we also need to recognize that global infrastructure may not necessarily have the nuance or the context to build local infrastructure. And so it’s a network of partnerships. And you know, that’s what makes me so excited about working with folks like yourself and others in different continents to really partner and understand the unique challenges and how the system, how this ecosystem works in that region. And so I think that’s something that we want to double down on, is, how do we make sure that we have robust, meaningful partnerships that support both of our missions and collectively as a community? But I also see opportunity to reduce barriers to ensuring that everyone can participate in global open infrastructure. And I’ll call out a couple things here. One, institutions around the world have very different challenges, and so local context, even I think I get frustrated as as you know, somebody that grew up spent most of my life in South Africa, traveling a lot, spending a lot of time with you. Joy, you know, traveling to different regions. I think we can recognize that even within a region, there’s many different nuances. The challenges in South Africa are different to the challenges in Kenya, to that of Malawi, to that of Nigeria and I get frustrated with, I guess some folks that almost cost a blanket and almost pretend that it’s the same challenges everywhere. So it’s local context, local nuance, that’s needed, and that’s really important. What I will say is that we see a lot of resourcing challenges across across emerging regions, and that’s technical resourcing, actual developers not to say that the skills aren’t there, the skills are definitely there, absolutely hands down, are there. It’s really the ability for institutions to there’s so many things that are evolving, and so many needs in emerging regions, because there’s a lot of advancement happening that to have a dedicated resourcing, say, a developer working on a project is a institutions, and so we can help with that by providing open source infrastructure services, tools and build collaboratively and work together on that. And the other is the financial challenges. And I want to call out here that I think there are many different things that we need to do in reducing financial burden, but it’s important that we care about comparing apples with apples, if that makes sense in that by hosting something locally doesn’t mean it’s necessarily free. There’s cost of running in that service, setting out that server. There’s a huge cost in maintaining that server and the technical resourcing. And we know from our different efforts, if we work with different universities, that to have a developer working on maintaining a server or system and set of services ongoing is a big challenge for institutions. And so by centralizing and working together around a shared ecosystem or open infrastructure, that’s where we can unlock a lot of economies of scale, but also reduce the financial cost. And so being clear about that, and I say that as Data Cite, and there’s definitely much more work, and we’re talking about this as a community, no matter how we can do even more, but I will say that we obviously recognize that there is a fee associated with infrastructure, as there is for every infrastructure. Doesn’t matter how you host this. But how do we make that transparent and clear where those costs are going and understand that.And I think those are things that we need to make sure that we support on and so to that end, some of the things that we’ve been doing is working with funders to create things like the global access fund that could provide funding to institutions to build technology, to provide financial assistance to do capacity building. We haven’t solved it. I don’t pretend for a second that we’ve done solved the entire challenge, but it’s something that we need to do more of to support and accelerate growth, and it’s really in supporting these local, regional partners that really understand the context the new ones, and are the champions in the particular region. And that’s where partnership is really important in this.

Joy Owango:

And you’re right about that. As much as we like talking about SDG 17, sometimes you see there’s a bit of fragmentation in this ecosystem. And I don’t see tunnel vision, but yes, tunnel vision,because you see the reality is that, you know, when you’re looking at open science as it is, there are people involved, even if machines were involved, there are people who need to manage those machines. So there’s a human element, there’s a human resource element of it, and it will cost. So I always say it’s an issue of keeping it open. Let people make the decision based on what is there. If they see it is too high, they say, Okay, fine. And if it is a way to make it as equitable as possible, we look at different ways to make that equitable, because we cannot. I like the statement from the Vice Chancellor of UCT at the diamond Open Access conference. He said, we need to make responsible decisions when you’re talking about open science. I love that statement because it means that we need to be cognizant of the ecosystem that supports open science, and there’s a certain limit to which governments can fund, and we already seen governments reducing their funding on Open Science, which is really scary. And also there’s a degree to which even foundations can support. So it means that you need to think outside the box to be a bit more sustainable. And one of the ways to map this Knowledge is by being collaborative. Let’s come out of our tunnels and look at how we can make this as collaborative and as equitable as possible. Yes, and I, and I get it there will, there will be a cost. There is definitely going to be a cost. We cannot, we cannot put our heads in the sand about that, but it’s something that we really need to remind our stakeholders. Even if you’re saying you’re going to do it for free, you will go to a funder to ask for money, meaning there is a cost associated with it, and the funder is going to get it from what maybe the taxpayers, somebody at the end of that chart, and within that chain is paying for that service. So we need to be cognizant of that, and it brings me to the next question, which talks about how complex our ecosystem is. The research ecosystem is very complex. It is interdisciplinary work, and it’s and it is. It supports diverse publishing formats. What do you see as the most urgent challenges, and where do you see real momentum and opportunity for innovation and impact, bearing in mind what you’ve just talked about, the need for collaboration, the need for realistic openness when it comes to open science and cost benefit as well.

Matt Buys:

Yeah, so I guess it’s there are many different answers to this question, but I think I’ll focus on where the question starts in the complexity. I think one of the most urgent challenges that we see is being able to reduce the complexity and we think about infrastructure in general. If we think about, you know, electricity infrastructure, use a South African example here, which I think many can reflect on, is that, you know, we don’t complain, or there’s no problems when we have energy and it’s working, but we do complain when it’s not working and when There’s load shedding South Africa. And so the same can be said for roads, for hospitals, for, you know, many different challenges. And also just noting, just a side note that I want to acknowledge, that many communities in various regions around the world don’t have access to electricity, and so just noting that, that that’s a privilege to have electricity and and noting that as a side comment. But you know, I think, how do we reduce the complexity of what we’re doing in that it should be assumed that the understanding and the benefit of that open infrastructure is acknowledged by the user and that they don’t need to understand all of the complexity. And if I relate this to what we do in persistent identifier open infrastructure, is that researchers don’t necessarily need to understand every element of the metadata or how DOIS are registered in the handle system. It’s really important for them to understand how they can deposit something and how they can use that DOI as an example in their workflows. And that’s what the importance is, and how that brings value to them so they understand that, once I have this unique DOI as an example, I can use that to cite my work, but I can also use it to track my impact and also case my research and make sure that it’s discoverable and accessible by registering That DOI many different aggregators, global aggregators, have access to my work now. And so that’s really, really important, particularly when we talk about knowledge dissemination, visibility, discoverability.

 And isolated solutions are not necessarily the solution to that. It’s the collective, shared, open infrastructure that we build together that brings that. And so if we focus on that, focus on building tools and services like what you’re doing with Africa PID alliance that support these needs. That’s where we’re going to see momentum, opportunity for researchers to deliver impact, ensure their discoverability, ensure accessibility of their work, but without over complicating it and making it too difficult. So, that’s a risk, because when we talk, we get into the details of what we do, but we need to also make sure that when we focus on work with researchers or individuals, it’s really important just to focus on the clean, simple benefits that it brings to the researchers want to do research. They don’t want to be caught up in administrative tasks and burden. And so that I see as a challenge that we need to make sure that we continue to do that, and make sure that we using the right messaging and training, but also that we use that as momentum to deliver that value and opportunity for the impact of research outputs and resources.

Joy Owango:

So basically, what you’re saying is service over technology. We understand the importance of the technology to support the community, but we should focus on how can this technology support you so that let’s not get into the nitty gritty of it.

Matt Buys:

Absolutely, and build it into the workflows that the researchers are already in. Researchers are already storing outputs and resources in different places. So how do we bring the technology to them, as opposed to asking them to alter and you know, because we so often get caught into the narrative of all you need to do is you go to this website, and then you have to create an account here, and then you need this, and then you need to do this one other thing, and then… how do we just bring the technology to them. And so that’s really important is make it simple. Make it easy for researchers, that’s the real benefit. That’s what brings impact.

Joy Owango:

I like what you’re saying, because when we were creating DOCID, and as I said, version 1.0 is out , when we were creating DOCID, the first thing that we asked ourselves was, hold on, how can we make this so easy that somebody who has no background in Data Management can understand how to use it? So our call to action in the production process was point and click. Use this click. It pulls in this persistent identifier. Or you can use this persistent identifier. It is so easy to use. It is service over technology and even the narrative out of it became so easy because now we told them, oh, now you can see how this can support you as a researcher, the DVC research office, the librarian, the collections librarian, they could see how that whole process can can how the DOCID actually can support them. And I like that, because when we are having calls with sometimes our technical partners or the technical team, you find yourself lost, immersed in the technical aspect of it, and you conveniently, you actually forget the true purpose of the technology, and it is service. And we need to bring that out, because the more what I’m saying a lot, especially from Africa, is that there’s this grand assumption that we know what PIDs are. It’s it scares me so much. Every time you bring it up, there are blank stares. What is a PID? Until when you mention the actual product, they’re like, Oh, so that’s a PID. It’s like, yes, these are PIDs. Do you know what PIDs do you know what this PID is used for? Another blank stare. There’s that lack of, I’m not saying that they there are those who know about it, and it’s the privileged top universities that have invested in these ecosystems and data management that they may know. But the bulk of it, the bulk of our stakeholders, are coming to terms with the elements of data management and open data management and the ecosystems that support that whole life cycle. So making technology simple and accessible, so that we, we have service over technology is important. So that I, I love, that you also have that vision, so that you make it easy for anyone, yeah, who is not necessarily a data manager, know how to use.So as we wind up, this has been really nice. I’ve enjoyed this conversation.

 But as we wind up, as you reflect and you reflect on your journey, what advice would you offer to the next generation, building and sustaining open infrastructure? What should we keep top of our mind as this ecosystem continues to develop, and when you’re answering this, please share with me your views from the Global South, because we are seeing, yes, there’s a generation of people sustained building and sustaining infrastructure, but we are seeing them mostly from the Global North. What should the Global South do to contribute to this conversation as well.

Matt Buys:

Yeah, so a couple of things. One, be proud. There’s amazing research that happens across the continent, across emerging regions. And I use emerging specifically because they are emerging, growing, innovative, fantastic regions. And so trust your intuition. I’m a big proponent and love following the growth mindset is that keeps working iteratively and continues to improve. Start somewhere. You know, we’ve had lots of learnings over the years at Data Cite and challenges. And things that we’ve got wrong. And so I think continue to iterate and improve, continue to build partnerships, strong, robust partnerships for the long term is really important. I think keep your ear to the ground, and, you know, trust that you understand the local context and nuance better than others. And so whilst you might seek advice, I think you always need to think about how that relates to the local nuance, local context, right? How things work. And coming from South Africa, as an example, we understand how research is incentivized in that region as an example. And that’s really important. That’s a really important context. when you’re thinking about building systems and services the same in Kenya, there’s, there’s a very distinct, unique way in that, how researchers are funded and support their research in that country, and so build with that mindset that you’re understanding local context, that you engaging with the others and keeping your ear to the ground in the sense that you continue to iterate and improve for their benefit. And I think just having conversations together, we’re much stronger, and as that is, it really is, for me, one of the proudest things at Data Site is that our strength is in the community. It’s not in our technology. It’s not in the data that we have because, and both of those are open for that reason is that we build value as a global community, as a global ecosystem, and the power of that ecosystem is the connections and integrations that we all build together and that shared collective investment that’s powerful. And I think if we work as a community of communities, and work on communities of practice, we succeed as a community.

Joy Owango:

Oh, fantastic. Thank you so much, Matt, that has been amazing. I love this conversation.

Matt Buys:

Yeah. Thank you so much for the invite. And as you know, particularly, Africa is dear to my heart. And you know, as somebody born in Africa, proudly South African, you know, I want to acknowledge that there’s challenges that many different people have across the globe, and it’s important that we recognize that on a global scale, and actually act on that with real intent and real impact and so lots more that we can do and working with you is, you know, certainly one of those efforts that we’re looking at.

Joy Owango:

Fantastic.

Outro:

Thanks for joining us on today’s episode of Mazungumzo Podcast. Be sure to subscribe and follow us on all our channels for more updates and candid stories by researchers, policymakers, higher education leaders, and innovators on your journeys. See you in our next episode.

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