I was only a few hours out of Cairo when I saw the first reports of the massacre at the al Rawdah Sufi mosque while watching the onboard broadcast of CNN.

I'd spent the prior week in Egypt visiting local universities and meeting with faculty and students to discuss science and science publishing. Although I hadn't been near where the tragedy occurred, the shocking news interrupted my reflections about the experiences of my week there. While still feeling heartsick for the Egyptian people, the intervening days have not dampened my impression of Egypt and its people as resilient, open minded, and strong willed nor my admiration for the current efforts of its research community. I hope to return and would do so in a heartbeat.

I was there conducting workshops on authoring, building on other recent Cell Press-sponsored events in the region, including a prior series in Egypt. Many of the questions posed to me by researchers were typical of those I get when I meet with scientists everywhere. Others fell outside of my day-to-day experiences and I suspect that of many of this blog's readers.

"If I found out my paper was published in a fake journal, could I still have it considered by a real one?" "What do I do when a journal hasn't returned reviewer comments or a decision and now wants me to pay a fee for withdrawing the manuscript?" It's one thing to know that predatory journals exist and that predatory practices occur in the publishing world, but it's another thing altogether to feel the direct harm that's being done to our colleagues, especially those junior researchers seeking their first publications and the international validation that should come with that. The situations many experience are an outrage, and greater collective effort is needed to combat them.

Even more commonly expressed were concerns about unending wait times during the review process and lack of transparency in editorial decisions, the dearth of affordable quality English language editing services, the high cost of publishing (especially as it relates to open access), and concerns about bias against research coming from developing countries. I'm still reflecting on what I heard, and I don't know that there are any easy answers, but I hope raising these issues in this post will kick off a sustained discussion of the challenges in science publishing that are facing researchers worldwide. We're a global community of science and science publishing, and the issues that affect our colleagues in Cairo should be as front and center in our attention as those facing scientists in Singapore or San Diego.

I'd encourage you to post your thoughts in the comments below, share a personal experience, or raise a question related to these issues for future discussion on CrossTalk.

The Egyptian research community no doubt faces challenges similar to many places in the world, but there are concrete efforts backed by a strong determination to increase its international prominence. A striking example can be found at Zewail City of Science and Technology, a private institution rising on the Western outskirts of greater Cairo, so-named for Ahmed Zewail, a Nobel Laureate and pioneer in femtochemistry. While only partially completed, the gleaming new buildings and scale of the ongoing construction speak to its ambition of being a leader in research.

Similarly, the historied public institutions I visited (University of Alexandria, Mansoura University, Ain Shams University, and the National Research Centre) teem with talent and committed faculty and yet face the daunting task of distributing resources amongst their very large student enrollments (for instance, Ain Shams University has ~180,000 undergraduates). For its part, the government is pursuing a unique investment in the widespread distribution of scientific information via the Egyptian Knowledge Bank, an online collection of resources and journals that is accessible not only to scientists and students but also the Egyptian public as a whole. In addition to learning about the needs and experiences of the local scientific community, a goal of my visit was to highlight Cell Press and Elsevier's inclusion in this initiative.

On my last full day in Egypt, we drove the so-called desert highway en route to the University of Alexandria, located near where Alexandria's ancient library, the epicenter for scholarship in the ancient world, once stood. I'd been on that same road 20+ years earlier, and the teenager me was struck by the vast expanse of hard-packed desert spanning out in all directions. But this time, I found a landscape transformed. All was under cultivation or built upon, a testament how much can change within a generation through steady effort and longterm planning. Looking out the window, I wondered, "what will Egyptian science look like in 20 years?"

My visit to Alexandria also happened to coincide with Thanksgiving, and there are many to whom I'd like to express my gratitude for my visit. From the gracious hospitality of the Faculty Deans who welcomed me to their institutions to the faculty researchers for sharing their experiences and their students for raising challenging questions. Finally, I can't thank my Elsevier colleagues in the Cairo office enough for the opportunity to experience research in Egypt and for the seamless organization of my visit. My visit was part of a much larger program of engagement led by my Elsevier colleagues in Egypt, in particular by the worldly and thoughtful Samer Gamal (above left at Mansoura University) and the spirited and savvy Mohamed Sayed (above right), whose exceptional negotiating skill I witnessed firsthand in aiding my purchase of handmade tea trays in Cairo's Khan el Khalili bazaar. I'm grateful for their efforts and those of my other Elsevier colleagues in continuing to expand access to high-quality science in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere.