On March 6-7, 2019, we had the COAR Asia 2019 meeting in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The meeting was hosted by Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) and was well attended by government representatives, national open access advocates, local researchers and librarians, as well as several members of the Bangladesh parliament. The event was covered by the local media – in the national newspaper and on broadcast on national television.

As in previous years, the meeting was an opportunity to focus on open access activities in the Asian region and exchange information about strategies, infrastructure and policies, as well as provide the community with an update about COAR’s next generation repositories and aligning repository networks work.

Agricultural research is a key priority and strength for Bangladesh, and open access to the results of this research is important as it can support the development of new services and innovations and have direct benefits for the local farmers.

The challenges faced in Bangladesh to implementing widespread open access are familiar to many of us: lack of incentives and awareness by the research community, insufficient resources to support “pay to publish” models, and gaps in expertise and staffing. However, to address this, the Bangladesh community has already begun working together to develop shared strategies and resources across the major research institutions.

Participants discussed the unique opportunities in the country that could be leveraged to move things forward, in particular the strong push by the federal government for “Digital Bangladesh”, a strategy to modernize and provide digital and open access to government services, data and information. At this meeting, we were able to articulate how open science fits into the broader concept of open government, and discuss how Bangladesh can both support local priorities, while still participating in international research activities.

Big thanks to Dr. Susmita Das, Dr. M. Baktear, and all the colleagues at BARC for co-organizing and hosting this event.