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http://www.research4life.org
Contact: info@research4life.org
Research4Life is the collective name for four programmes in which more than 190 publishers provide access to researchers, academics, students, doctors, agriculturalists, economists and other professionals in the developing world. For institutions in most countries listed in the United Nations Least Developed Countries (LDCs) List, or with a Human Development Index (HDI) of less than 0.63, or where the Gross National Income per person is $1600 or less, access is entirely free. For institutions in countries that do not match at least one of the above criteria and with either a GNI per capita less than $5000 or an HDI at or below 0.67, a small fee is charged. The publishers donate any revenues collected in this way for training and outreach programmes.
In HINARI (Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative), sponsored by the World Health Organization, over 5000 institutions in 108 countries have registered for access to more than 8500 journals and 7000 books in biomedical research and healthcare and related subjects.
AGORA (Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture) is sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization. Some 85 publishers are providing access to more than 3100 journals through 2300 institutions.
In the latest Research4Life programme, OARE (Online Access to Research in the Environment), 2200 institutions have registered for access to more than 4500 journals from some 105 publishers.
ARDI (Access to Research for Development and Innovation) is sponsored by the World Intellectual Property Organization and is Research4Life’s newest programme. Currently 12 publishers are providing access to around 200 journals through 100 institutions.
Over 75% of all the journals in the Research4Life programmes are published by publishers who are members of the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), and STM is a major sponsor of Research4Life.
Cornell University's Mann Library (agriculture) and Yale University Library are key partners in the programmes, providing much of the essential backroom and bibliographic infrastructure. Additionally, Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies supports field work in OARE. Research4Life's lead technical partner is Microsoft, which supports many of the systems which make the programmes possible.
HINARI was launched in 2002, AGORA in 2003, OARE in 2006, and ARDI joined Research4Life in 2010. In 2006, two key reviews recommended the continuation of the programmes. They also recommended that they be linked with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals; the target date for the MDGs to be achieved is 2015 and the partners have agreed to continue to support Research4Life at least until then.
Usage of the content provided under Research4Life continues to grow: in the HINARI programme alone, logins increased by 16% in 2010 while page views nearly doubled to some 120 million.
More information
This 20 page booklet brings together a series of reports from the field in which users demonstrate how access to peer-reviewed scientific research via the Research4Life programmes has transformed their work, life and community.
- Research4Life Partner Newsletters now available
- New Reports for Research4Life - released 20 September 2010
- 2010 Research4Life User Experience Review
- Research4Life on YouTube
What do I get from STM? What we do
Research4Life programmes offer the participating publisher a systematic programme of on-site and web based training in discovery and use of your content
Partnership with respected UN agencies – the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
Local country experts that validate access requests are from legitimate qualifying organisations
Dedicated detection of password misuse and effective remedial action
We are enhancing the value of Research4Life by launching programmes:
Enabling you to focus on specific market segments within each qualifying country
Now ARDI offers you access to markets in physical sciences, engineering, and technology, complementing our established biomedical based programmes
Partnering with Microsoft providing videos for you and stakeholders seeing how their content is bringing benefits to developing country communities
2010’s video provides a vivid demonstration of the value that AGORA access has brought to farming in Burkina Faso
2011's video provides graphic insight into the benefits that the HINARI training programme brings to its participants.
Developed a competition with Microsoft encouraging students to create a download manager enabling users with poor internet connections to resume interrupted downloads - your content will become more readily available to users whose access has been limited by poor internet connections.
And more benefits of R4Life:
Collective marketing on your behalf – promotional competitions, outreach to international and local journalists, and regular communication with end-users and libraries to promote awareness of your content.
In 2011 organised an end-user competition eliciting feedback on how your content is proving to be invaluable to users - feeding back some of the most impressive entries so that you can demonstrate to editors and sponsoring societies the benefits of your outreach
