Clean Air Journal (CAJ) is the official publication of the National Association for Clean Air, a not-for-profit organization based in South Africa. It is a peer-reviewed no fee (Diamond) open access journal that publishes articles on air quality, air quality management, and the impacts of air pollution relevant to Africa. CAJ is the only academic journal focusing on African air quality, and provides a valuable platform for emerging atmospheric researchers in Africa to publish their work. In addition to research, the journal publishes editorials, commentary, news, commercial information, and highlights of relevant articles from international peer-reviewed journals.
In October 2024 EIFL awarded the National Association for Clean Air a grant to enhance the discoverability and visibility of the CAJ, especially in other African countries, to increase community engagement in the journal, and strengthen strategic partnerships.
TIMELINE
October 2024 - December 2025
PROJECT RESULTS
Visibility of the CAJ has increased
- Developed a comprehensive marketing and communications strategy for the CAJ, including upgrading the website, increasing use of social media, and building staff capacity to execute the strategy:
- Improved the aesthetics and accessibility of the website, the primary platform for engaging with the journal.
- New logo, banner and modern fonts applied throughout
- Uniform application of main and sub headings
- Word cloud added to journal home page
- Improved buttons and resizing of adverts
- Social media icons and links to platforms
- New Home Page
- Rearrangement of Main Menu
- Launched channels on Facebook, LinkedIn, and BlueSky in August 2025, rebranded their existing channel on X, and encouraged the editorial team to actively post and engage. The response has been positive: by the end of November 2025, across X, Facebook and LinkedIn, CAJ’s follower numbers had grown to 2,231.
- Consolidated the CAJ mailing list for communicating with the community via email and newsletters that highlight CAJ articles and activities.
- Improved the aesthetics and accessibility of the website, the primary platform for engaging with the journal.
- Presented and promoted the CAJ at two conferences in Africa:
- CLEAN-Air Forum, Nairobi, Kenya 15-17 July 2025, a conference that attracts practitioners and policymakers from across Africa and the globe presented a high-level opportunity to highlight CAJ. President of NACA, provided an overview of the evolution of South Africa’s air quality framework and the perspective of NACA and CAJ in advancing open science and engaging with government and other key stakeholders in air quality. CAJ has issued a call for papers for a dedicated special issue focused on selected abstracts presented at the CLEAN-Air Forum 2025, and the 2026 Forum will be hosted in South Africa.
- Second International Conference on Chemical Weather and Chemical Climate (CWCC), Benguerir, Morocco, 14-16 October 2025. The focus of this conference aligns with the CAJ's focus and brought together a large audience of researchers whose work is aligned with CAJ. The CAJ Editor-in-Chief, Professor Rebecca Garland, attended the CWCC, where she gave a presentation on the CAJ and how conference participants can be involved.
- Strengthened strategic partnerships with Pan-African and global networks.
- CAJ has strengthened its link to the Africa Clean Air Network (AfriCAN), which leads the Clean-Air Forum.
- Links to the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) project were strengthened by attending the CWCC conference.
- A Pan-African air quality modelling community is being established from CWCC conference, which includes Prof Garland, Editor-in-Chief of CAJ.
- The number of articles submitted from African countries other than South Africa has increased:
In Issue 2 of 2025 alone, CAJ published seven articles from other African countries (Algeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Zimbabwe). This is more than in any preceding year (2022: 3 authors; 2023: 5 authors; 2024: 1 author from African countries other than South Africa).
The National Association of Clean Air project is one of 33 that have received grant support through a three-year project to strengthen Diamond open access publishing in Africa, implemented by EIFL, AJOL (African Journals Online) and WACREN (the West and Central African Research and Education Network), with funding from Wellcome.
OA-AFRICA-GRANTEE
