Karen Bruns

Chief Operating Officer, Research Research (Africa)

Trained as a lawyer with a Masters in national commercial law and international trade law, Karen Bruns has held management roles in the publishing, multimedia and advertising industries. Starting out in the 'Struggle Publishing' companies in South Africa in the 1980's - David Philip Publishers and Ravan Press, she did a brief stint in advertising before returning to university to complete her law degree. Karen stayed on to teach undergraduate legal studies at Rhodes University, before completing her legal training at the Old College of Edinburgh University. She has since worked in all things but law - legal and professional publishing, scholarly publishing and multimedia in the main and has management, strategic planning, marketing, marketing communications and public relations experience.
Most recently she was one of the pioneers of open access scholarly publishing in South Africa and was instrumental in raising the profile of the research output of the HSRC and other social scientists amongst researchers in 203 countries around the world. She was the Chair of the Academic Sector Council within the Publishers Association of South Africa (PASA) and served on the General Council of PASA from 2006 - 2010.
Karen is developing expertise and community platforms for research and innovation managers across Africa within her role at Research Africa, the leading online platform for institutional access to global news and funding databases.