Open repository advocate appointed to global committee

6 May 2025 - Wits University

Lazarus Matizirofa (Matizi) has been appointed to the International Open Repositories Steering Committee (ORSC) serving from 2025 to 2027.

Matizi is an Associate Director: Research, Scholarly Communication, Digital Systems, and Services at the Wits Libraries.

The ORSC team is focused on building repository capacity, aligning open-access policies, bridging the knowledge divide by shaping open repository networks, and acting as a global voice for the research repository community. It also has the overarching responsibility to ensure the continuation of the annual International Open Repositories (OR) Conference, which occupies a unique place in the landscape of open knowledge, open source, and digital preservation conferences.

Matizi’s appointment comes as a recognition of his commitment to open scholarship and leadership in implementing a global, multidimensional framework for good practices in open science, which can be applied to various types of open repositories, including open publications, open data, and open digital archival materials. He gained open science experience while working at the National Research Foundation as a knowledge management specialist, where, together with colleagues, he drafted the NRF’s Open Access Mandate in 2015. He was one of the Technical Advisory Board members for the African Open Science Platform from 2017 to 2019.  He further served as a member of the Steering Committee for the SA-EU Open Science Dialogue, which was initiated by the Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation, from 2018 to 2019.  Currently, Matizirofa is involved in a sub-committee of the South African National CODATA Committee.  In 2023, he was invited to the Open Science FAIR2023 in Madrid, Spain, to share Africa’s Open Science developments. This platform was co-organised by OpenAIRE, a not-for-profit organisation to ensure a permanent open scholarly communication infrastructure to support European research, and FECYT, as part of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

He is a Wits PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary Digital Knowledge Economy Studies. He holds a master’s degree in information studies from the University of Cape Town and a diploma in Public Relations.