Marking the relaunch of UCT Press - a small contribution from OAPEN Foundation

<p>Endorsement for the relaunch of UCT Press&nbsp;</p><p>At OAPEN and DOAB we firmly believe in the collective benefit of openness as espoused by UNESCO's Recommendation on Open Science: "As a global public good, open science should belong to humanity in common and benefit humanity as a whole. To this end, scientific knowledge should be openly available and its benefits universally shared. The practice of science should be inclusive, sustainable and equitable."&nbsp;</p><p>Open and equitable scholarly publishing is central to this mission. This not only promotes fairness, inclusiveness, and diversity in knowledge production and exchange, but it also stimulates and fosters innovation across scientific communities and disciplines. Ensuring an open and more fluid transmission of knowledge cultivates collaborative and interdisciplinary initiatives as well as community engagement. To facilitate open science, it is imperative that relevant stakeholders like researchers, publishers, libraries, funders, and service providers collaborate to make open publishing of both journals and books work.&nbsp;</p><p>By combining shared expertise, resources are pooled and open infrastructures developed that are crucial to sustaining open access – from metadata management, usage reporting, and quality assurance to dissemination, archiving, and other important components that make open access work. While building trust – and as the open access community continues to grow and mature – more support for open science can be leveraged globally.&nbsp;</p><p>OAPEN and DOAB welcome and support the University of Cape Town Press's transition to open and its commitment to driving open access across South Africa, the African continent, and beyond. Such a commitment supports our common goal of promoting a fairer, more bibliodiverse, and sustainable scholarly publishing landscape to the benefit of us all – producers and consumers of science alike.&nbsp;</p>