Susan Veldsman has been the Director of the Scholarly Publication Programme at the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) since 2009. As Director she contributes to, among other things, driving the South African Open Science agenda; raising the visibility, discoverability, and accessibility of South African (SA) scholarly journals (including SciELO SA); improving the quality of SA research output; and supporting the development of policy frameworks to facilitate optimal use and access to publicly funded research.

Following the publishing of the ASSAF Report on Strategic Approach on Scholarly Publishing in 2006, recommending an open access repository of South African journals, she was responsible for implementing the SciELO South Africa collection in 2009 which now hosts 105 open access journals. She has also championed the government’s recognition, accreditation, and sustained funding for SciELO SA.

Susan was one the first Open Access advocates in South Africa. At the University of Johannesburg Library, she started the first institutional repository in 1996.  She worked at EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) before joining ASSAf. In 2013, she received the Electronic Publishing Trust (EPT) award for her outstanding contribution to the promotion of Open Access in Developing Countries. Recently, she was the Co-chair of the IAP Report on Combatting Predatory Journals and Conferences, which was launched on 16 March 2022. She holds a master’s degree in science and technologies from the Stellenbosch University, South Africa. She has played a vital role in high-level OA and OS policy development and implementation initiatives and the Open Science Framework in South Africa.