Leslie Chan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Global Development Studies and Director of the Knowledge Equity Lab at the University of Toronto Scarborough. Leslie’s work critically examines the geopolitical and institutional power dynamics that shape systemic inequality in scholarly communication systems, digital infrastructures, and research evaluation.
As one of the original signatories of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) and the founding director of Bioline International, an open access platform for journals from the Global South, Leslie has long championed the visibility and recognition of research from historically marginalized communities and regions, and collaborative models of knowledge dissemination. He was the Principal Investigator of the Open and Collaborative Science in Development Network (OCSDNet), a multi-regional research initiative that contributed to the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science by foregrounding inclusive infrastructure, community-led research, situated openness, and epistemic pluralism.
Through the Knowledge Equity Lab and its partnership with the global Knowledge for Change (K4C) network, Leslie fosters collaborative learning between students, scholars, and community organizations, supporting justice-oriented participatory research and pedagogical practices. He also contributes to global and national policy through advisory roles with organizations such as the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI), and the Tri-Agency and the International Development Research Center in Canada.