Mekelle University (MU), founded in 2000 and located in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia, is a research-intensive institution dedicated to advancing knowledge, economic growth, and social welfare both nationally and internationally. As a founding member of the Ethiopian Research Universities Forum in 2025, MU is committed to elevating the visibility and impact of Ethiopian research on the global stage. A significant part of this mission involves ensuring our research is visible, accessible, and impactful. However, a critical gap was identified: a vast repository of valuable scholarly outputs, including postgraduate theses, dissertations, and datasets, remained largely invisible to the global research community because they lacked persistent identifiers (PIDs) like Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs). This made them difficult to cite, track, and reuse, limiting their potential impact.
To address this gap, MU applied to the DataCite Global Access Fund (GAF) and was awarded a grant that provided critical support to integrate DataCite DOIs into our institutional repository, removing financial barriers that had previously prevented our participation in global research infrastructure. Our project’s core objective is to enhance the visibility, accessibility, and citability of Ethiopian research outputs—ensuring that early-career scholars and local knowledge are represented in the global scientific record. By leveraging DataCite DOIs, MU is not only advancing open science within our institution but also paving the way for a broader Ethiopian research community to join global scholarly networks. This work represents a foundational step toward equitable participation in international science.