Open AIR is a unique collaborative network with a primary goal to uncover new insights about the balance between control and access to knowledge.

The Open African Innovation Research Network (Open AIR) aims to solve a problem at the heart of intellectual property (IP) and innovation policy: how to reconcile tensions between appropriation and access, excluding and sharing, and competing and collaborating.  

Funded by SSHRC, IDRC, and Universities Canada,  Open AIR has researchers in more than 20 African countries, Canada, and elsewhere in the world.  

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Open AIR Network’s research is showing how knowledge-based businesses can capitalize on open collaborative innovation strategies, by answering three overarching questions:  

  • How can open collaborative innovation help knowledge-based businesses scale up and seize the new opportunities of a global knowledge economy?  
  • Which knowledge governance policies will best ensure that the social and economic benefits of innovation are shared inclusively?  
  • How can open collaborative innovation help scale the impacts of next-generation technologies to promote gender equality, youth employment, and other aspects of inclusion?  

The Open AIR Network has five thematic research clusters, based on its previous research on knowledge and innovation in Africa: High Technology Hubs; Informal Innovation; Indigenous Entrepreneurship; Innovation Metrics, and Laws and Policies.  

Hubs

Team

The Open AIR Network has a number of collaborators in more than 20 African countries, Canada, and elsewhere in the world.  

The Steering Committee is comprised of:  

Jeremy de Beer

Jeremy de Beer

Full Professor, Common Law Section, Faculty of Law

Erika Kraemer-Mbula

Erika Kraemer-Mbula

Associate Professor, University of Johannesburg

Caroline Ncube

Caroline Ncube

Full Professor, Department of Commercial Law, University of Cape Town

Chidi Oguamanam

Chidi Oguamanam

University Research Chair in Sustainable Bio-Innovation, Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Global Knowledge Governance / Full Professor, Faculty of Law

Nagla Rizk

Nagla Rizk

Professor of Economics, American University in Cairo

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Melissa Omino

CIPIT - Strathmore University

Tobias Schonwetter

Tobias Schonwetter

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town

Yvonne Ndelle

Yvonne Ndelle

Program Manager and Research Associate, Open AIR

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Caroline Muchiri

NERG Ombudsperson

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Contact

The Canadian hub is led by Prof Jeremy de Beer and Prof Chidi Oguamanam at the University of Ottawa Centre for Law, Technology and Society.  

Office Location:

University of Ottawa, Brooks 411  

100 Thomas More Private  

Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5 CANADA  

E-mail: [email protected]   
Website: openair.africa
Twitter: twitter.com/Afrinnovation
Facebook: www.facebook.com/africaninnovation/   
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/Afrinnovation/videos