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Carolina Ramirez Santana is a researcher working on auto-immune diseases and lab coordinator for the Translational Medicine Research Group at Centro de Estudio de Enfermedades Autoimmunes (CREA), Colombia.

Since 2014, Carolina has been working at CREA, after training in Germany, Spain, and Switzerland in the area of immunology. She coordinates all the research, patient samples, experimental design and ensures that all protocols in the lab are followed, working with the translational medicine group on cellular pathways involved in different autoimmune diseases.

To mark this year’s Open Access Week, we interviewed Carolina to hear her views on open access, the lack of funding, and she also explains the challenges faced by researchers in Colombia in disseminating their research on the international stage.

 

How much awareness of open access publishing is there among Colombian researchers?

Everyone should be aware of what we publish, the data is everything.

Since 2011, there has been a great push towards open access in Colombia. As part of the National Strategy of Open Access, Colombia has promised to promote, to guarantee and to protect open access.

In 2013, the Law of Transparency was enacted by the government, in order to guarantee and protect open access of scientific information.

 

In your experience, in Colombia are there any restrictions to acquire access to research that is not open access?

I would say that is dependent on the university. For example, here at CREA, which is a private university, we suggest the subscriptions we need according to our disciplines. As we have many different groups, covering a range of topics and fields, we generally don’t have a problem finding an article because we have almost all the main journal subscriptions we need.

We are also well resourced because of an agreement with 25 libraries at other universities. A group that includes the main universities in Colombia, universities in US, some in France and a few in the UK. We share all the subscriptions and content. This way, we all have access to everything, and can access all the articles that we need. We are lucky to have this arrangement, however, the same may not be said for other universities.

 

How much funding support is there for open access in Colombia?

Under the name of the national strategy of open access, Colombia promised to promote, to guarantee and to protect open access.

There is no funding, and the support depends on which institute you work for. You can apply for funding from the National Institute of Science and Technology, but any money that that you do receive, you can only use say 2% of the total amount for publishing. It is very small.

Despite the 2013 law to guarantee transparency, and a national repository for all publications in Colombia to ensure that they are publicly available, the Colombian Government and national agencies for science and technologies are not legally obligated to support open access publishing.

 

What do you think are the main advantages and disadvantages of conducting research in Europe compared to Colombia?

In Colombia, we live in an endemic region. Here, in this unique geographical location we face many different diseases every day. We’ve had outbreaks of Zika, Dengue and Yellow fever, and in our clinic we see patients develop full symptoms of the disease. For this reason, we can conduct research on material that is not available in other settings.

The disadvantage, is the waiting time for reagents. In Colombia, we can wait three to six months, because of the bureaucracy and all the paperwork that has to be done to import any reagent. Meanwhile in Europe, when I was working in Scotland for example, I received my requested reagent in four days. Having to wait four months for a reagent is a big disadvantage and very frustrating.

 

Working in an endemic region, what influences where the work is published and how important is data sharing?

Unfortunately, it is the scientist’s own egos that have prevented this move towards open data.

During an outbreak, like Zika, research should be published open access, and it is important that the data is also open. We need a common database to help us get more information, because if I publish research based on a cohort of 50 patients, another physician might see the same 50 patients. When the data is freely available, research groups can analyse it differently, offering new insights and other information that can be shared.

Unfortunately, it is the scientist’s own egos that have prevented this move towards open data. Sometimes we don’t want to share data because we worry that people will take it, use it and not cite us. We need to overcome this fear, and instead prioritise our efforts to ensure that our work is translational and puts the community first. Everyone should be aware of what we publish, the data is everything.

 

What are the main challenges for researchers in Colombia to disseminate their work on an international stage?

I would say the costs, because you need to pay a little more to publish open access. Sometimes the costs can be high, and not all universities can afford to pay. When this is the case, any funding a research group has received might not be available to support their publishing needs, so they must publish their research in a cheaper subscription journal.

 

Open Access: ventajas y oportunidades

Durante la semana de Acceso Abierto 2017, F1000Research está celebrando las iniciativas colombianas de acceso abierto. Acompáñenos durante un seminario, organizado por César Berríos-Otero, donde responderemos a todas sus preguntas sobre acceso abierto y la forma en que puede funcionar para usted.

El seminario cubrirá los siguientes temas:

•       ¿Cuáles son los requisitos de acceso abierto en Colombia?
•       ¿Cuáles son las ventajas de la publicación en acceso abierto?
•       ¿Qué implica la revisión abierta y los datos abiertos?
•       ¿Qué tipo de resultados se pueden publicar en F1000Research y otras plataformas que utilizan la tecnologia de F1000 como motor?

Registrate aquí