Leslie Chan

University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto

Keynote Speaker


Leslie Chan, PhD is an Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Centre for Critical Development Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough. An early practitioner of the Web for scholarly and educational exchange, Leslie has been particularly interested in the role of “openness” in the design of knowledge infrastructure, and the implications on the production and flow of knowledge and their impact on local and international development. As one of the original signatories of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, Leslie has been active in the experimentation and implementation of scholarly communication initiatives of varying scales around the world. Director of Bioline International, an international collaborative open access platform, Leslie is a long time advocate for knowledge equity and inclusive development. Leslie has served as advisor to numerous projects and organizations, including the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, the American Anthropological Association, the International Development Research Centre, UNESCO, the Open Society Foundation, the Directory of Open Access Journal, more recently the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). Leslie is the principal investigator for the Open and Collaborative Science in Development Network (OCSDNet), funded by IDRC in Canada and DFID in the UK, and the PI of the Knowledge G.A.P project.