PREreview of Ten simple rules for successful and sustainable African research collaboration.docx

Congrats on this paper! I appreciate the way as the cultural differences as posted as barriers to conducting and building collaborations with African researchers and the many solutions that the authors bring to overcome the problem. In addition, starting the article by breaking stereotypes as an African seen as country was a pertinent approach, and the defense of local knowledge and the interest, needs, and priorities of the African continent is bold, once I came from a continent where it is not frequently not respected. Regarding Rule 2, I would consider linguistic barriers to accessing resources, once sometimes we can access, but we can not read the materials; or maybe these materials, workshops, etc should have transcripts. For Rule 3, when a researcher has their visa denied, it would be incredible to keep the talk remotely as an option, instead of cancel it. I mean in-person meetings with hybrid sessions. Regarding Rule 4, language can be a barrier to accessing any type of materials, regarding formats that do not attend to people with disabilities. Which type of collaboration would be necessary to solve this problem? For Rule 6, I would suggest including the variable age and stage of career as an aspect to promote inclusion and equity in research collaboration, since it is a lack of representation of young researchers in the scientific community. This lack of representation reinforces the stereotype of the scientist as a person who always has a certain age. Congratulations, again, and we need more papers like this – presenting the problems and the solutions to them in order to enhance equity, inclusion, and diversity in research.

Competing interests

The author declares that they have no competing interests.