Ecancer is a UK charity with a mission to raise the standards of care for cancer patients across the world through education. ecancer’s journal, ecancermedicalscience, only accepts submissions which feature at least one author from a Lower and Middle Income Country (LMIC), or which have a significant impact on under-resourced settings. This pioneering approach was taken in order to help break down barriers for LMICs authors and facilitate the publication of high-quality research from the areas of the world with the highest cancer burdens.
Africa makes up around 17% of the global population, but only 1% of the world’s published research is by African authors. 78% of African respondents to an ecancer survey had faced barriers getting their research published, including lack of funding, inadequate research techniques, geographical bias and linguistic difficulties. 85% had faced problems accessing the latest guidelines in order to be able to treat their patients.
In order to support African authors to publish their research and increase the amount of freely accessible data on which African countries can base their cancer control plans, ecancer works with local experts to commission articles on issues where publication of these results is most urgently needed, such as HPV vaccination and low-tech early detection methods for cervical cancer, tobacco-control policies for smoking-related cancers, and pain relief at the palliative stage. The publication of real-world data is crucial for areas of the world like Africa where Western guidelines are not always applicable.
ecancer works closely with African authors during the pre-submission, peer review and publication processes, offering personalised support and helping them to develop their papers to meet international publishing standards. Only peer reviewers with a deep understanding of resource-limited settings are selected. All authors also receive free language editing and open access publication with a CC BY copyright licence.

African researchers are faced with many challenges to conducting research and publishing the results thereof. In the relatively low output of published research from Africa, the main authors are usually from other continents. This reflects the paucity of African journals and external funding patterns of the research carried out. The need for local evidence that is based on available resources on the ground is most needed but lacking. Most journals have a bias towards publishing papers that address the most recent technologies and drugs compared to innovative repurposing of older treatments in keeping with African practice. Most oncology clinical trials are conducted in Egypt, South Africa, Algeria, and Kenya.

In low-resource settings, conditions are not conducive to research as there is no protected time and little local funding. Obstacles to research also include lack of research infrastructure, shortages of personnel coupled with heavy clinical workloads. Therefore, individuals must mostly use their personal time and even resources to conduct and write up the research. Many academic institutions require, as career advancement, research competency and the number of publications in credible peer reviewed journals is used as a measure of this. The large volumes of patients seen do not equally translate to volumes of documentation of the work done. The old saying of publish or perish still stands today and there is need to break down barriers to publication in peer reviewed journals for African researchers for them to be recognized for the work they do. Collaborative research is an important tool as it addresses some infrastructural and personnel barriers with opportunities for mentoring younger researchers to build capacity. This also enhances the chance to address local patients’ needs and in turn, improve on publishing. The is need for more African journals and those that have a global outlook.

This presentation will describe The Lancet Oncology’s editorial perspective on publishing high-quality research on clinical oncology and global cancer control. It will outline the types of papers that we seek to publish, what the journal is looking for, commonly encountered barriers to publication, and highlight other content we publish to challenge the status quo and tackle issues in global oncology. The presentation will outline our global advocacy programme that maps out inequalities and inequities in health systems, and offers a platform to discuss and resolve barriers to the provision of widespread high-quality cancer control for all people worldwide. These aims are all part of the journal's mission to to deliver the best science for better lives.