In January 2026, Open Access Australasia delivered a series of three workshops as part of the FORCE11 Scholarly Communication Institute (FSCI) titled The Future is Open Scholarship*: Explore and discuss four key topics in the evolving open landscape. The first two sessions were hosted virtually via Zoom, fostering global participation, while the third culminated in an engaging in-person event in Bangkok, Thailand, held during the pre-conference of the Charleston Asia Conference.
The Course
Targeting anyone in research or scholarly communication, from supporting roles like educators, librarians, and third-space professionals to direct researchers including academics and students, the course was designed to equip participants with insights into four main issues in open scholarship, exploring four interconnected themes: bibliodiversity (promoting equity, inclusion, and visibility for diverse research); Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance (covering the CARE Principles, Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property, and community-led initiatives in Australasia and elsewhere); Rights Retention (empowering author and institution control over research dissemination and reuse); and Generative AI (weighing its opportunities and risks for the open movement).
Content for the course was based on the first part of OA201 An Advanced Course in Open Scholarship though was broadened considerably for an international audience. Slides from the three workshops are licensed CC BY snd available for download and reuse.
* the title intentionally refers back to Tom Saunders’ foundational report, The Future is Open: Establishing Wider Open Access for Research Publications in Aotearoa New Zealand (2022.)
The Conference
The Charleston Asia Conference, held immediately after the FORCE11 Scholarly Communication Institute pre-conference in Bangkok, drew over 600 attendees, predominantly from universities but with a significant vendor presence as well. Sessions at the Charleston Asia Conference covered key themes including generative AI impacts on scholarly publishing and peer review, national subscription models like India’s One Nation One Subscription, open access workflows and digital repository management, equity in regional research access for Asia-Pacific institutions and climate research collaboration across global south networks, amongst other topics.
For a detailed report see the Charleston Hub recap
Photos of OAA workshop courtesy of Charleston Asia Conference. All other photos by Janet Catterall (2026.)
