Nigeria is taking a bold step toward academic publishing independence.Read the press release on the upcoming National Stakeholder Conference on Open Access Book Publishing (Oct 6–7, NOUN Abuja):

Abuja, Nigeria – October 6–7, 2025 – Nigeria’s academic community is taking a bold step toward publishing independence with a two-day national conference at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).

The summit, formally titled From Pilots to Policy: Advancing a National Framework for Open Access Books in Nigeria, will bring together university leaders, librarians, authors, government officials, and international experts to build a coordinated national system for open academic book publishing.

The initiative follows pilots at the Federal University of Technology, Minna (FUTMinna) and the University of Lagos. Both demonstrated that Nigerian institutions can manage their own publishing through Diamond Open Access — a no-fee, community-driven model where books are freely available online at no cost to authors or readers. At the heart of these pilots is BookHub, an AI-enabled platform that streamlines book creation, editing, and distribution.

“This is about reclaiming control over our scholarship,” said Prof. Abdulsalami Kovo, Director of the Academic Publishing Centre at FUTMinna. “For too long, our researchers’ work has been locked behind paywalls. Diamond Open Access offers a sustainable, community-led alternative.”

Day One will spotlight Nigeria’s progress and feature a keynote by the Open Book Collective (OBC) on sustainable funding models. It will also include a presentation from the West and Central African Research and Education Network (WACREN), highlighting the role of LIBSENSE, the Africa-wide initiative building open science infrastructure and communities, and its alignment with Nigeria’s publishing ambitions.

Day Two will focus on practice: technical sessions from the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) and Thoth Open Metadata on global visibility, followed by structured breakout sessions. These breakouts will be led by librarians and stakeholders of Nigeria’s network of Academic Publishing Centres (APCs). They will define how a nationally coordinated Diamond OA system should operate — addressing policy alignment, infrastructure needs, research assessment reforms, capacity development, intellectual property, and governance.

Conference outcomes will feed directly into the Tertiary Education Research and Applications System (TERAS) — TETFund’s national platform for higher-education research and learning services — ensuring that books, journals, and preprints produced in Nigeria are visible both nationally and internationally.

“This isn’t just about saving money,” added Dr. Fatimah Abduldayan, Co-Lead of the FUTMinna Open Access Project. “It’s about ensuring Nigerian scholarship is visible, credible, and accessible — for our students, our researchers, and the world.”

By combining Nigerian leadership with international collaboration, the Abuja Summit is set to position the country as a continental leader in Open Access and a model for the Global South.