The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development (EPT) has co-awarded the 2015 EPT award for individuals in developing countries working for Open Access to Bianca Amaro, information coordinator at the Brazilian Institute for Information in Science and Technology (IBICT). The other award went to Dr Roshan Kumar Karn from Nepal.

The EPT award is an annual international award to recognise the impact that individuals in developing countries make in promoting Open Access.

Bianca Amaro

Bianca Amaro, information coordinator at the Brazilian Institute for Information in Science and Technology (IBICT). Bianca has been directly responsible for the development and continuing progress of over 70 Institutional Repositories and regional networking to coordinate these activities. She has also worked to establish the Brazilian Portal of Scientific Publications in Open Access – oasisbr, holding more than a million documents related to Brazilian scientific output.

Further, she has worked to establish a new system for the distribution of theses and dissertations among 60 educational and research organisations and setting up a portal for the Brazilian Digital Library. In addition she has been responsible for the Directory of Open Access Policies and the organisation of the 6th Luso-Brazilian Conference of Open Access (CONFOA), and previous conferences. Working tirelessly to improve the distribution and quality of OA journals and research knowledge emanating from Brazil, she is a highly active proponent of Open access and her achievements are proudly acknowledged by the EPT.

Dr Roshan Kumar

Karn Dr Roshan Kumar Karn organised OA national conferences – the first in the country, and as a result of the good reception of this event he launched “Open Access: Greater Reach for Research”, which will work to integrate all the universities and research institutes in Nepal in the sharing of research publications and data. He has also begun the process of establishing an institutional repository in the largest medical school of the country, with government library support. He is now included as a member of the National Working Group on Open Access and Open Education Resources that was formed by the Government of Nepal this year.

A South Asian regional meeting on Open Access, Data and Educational resources is planned for 2016 and he secured funding for this event from UNESCO and the Ministry of Education. His activities continue and also include editing work, translation and OA promotional writing. His enthusiasm and energy are commendable and he has achieved so much in a small country facing difficult challenges, and in such a short time, that the EPT wish to recognise this by awarding a Special Recommendation for his work.

Interested to learn more about the EPT award for individuals in developing countries working for Open Access click here.

More information http://epublishingtrust.net/2015-ept-oa-award-winners/