See more

At Research4Life, we are always looking for ways to help our members and partners.  This year we had a very special opportunity to bring TEDMED to everyone on 16-21 April.

TEDMED (www.tedmed.com)  is the famous, multidisciplinary gathering at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington DC (16-19 April) where world-class thinkers and doers inspire and share their ideas and vision in medicine, global health, wellness and overall quality of life issues.

TEDMED Live is an extraordinary offering that TEDMED had agreed to give away for free to all the Research4Life institutions so that all participants in R4L had the chance to join the event remotely in real-time or on-demand.

As a thank you to all the partners of Research4Life, TEDMED made TEDMEDLive available free of charge.

Learn more about TEDMED. Download the brochure here.

Contact:       Charlotte Masiello-Riome,  Research4Life Communications communications@research4Life.org 

Global case study competition focuses on how vital collaboration between Research4Life and librarians powers effective research in developing countries.

London, United Kingdom 6 March 2013 – The Research4Life partnership announced today a case study competition to recognize the role of librarians and library staff in building the research capacities of scientists, doctors and policymakers and helping to boost research output within their institutions.

Since 2001, the Research4Life initiative has developed into a partnership of over 200 scientific publishers around the globe, giving researchers at more than 6,000 institutions in over 100 developing world countries and territories free or low cost online access to nearly 30,000 peer-reviewed international scientific journals, books, and databases provided by the world’s leading scientific, technical and medical publishers.

Research4Life has launched the library impact case study competition in celebration of the work that librarians do and to facilitate the sharing of best practice. The competition aims to highlight the dedication and capacity building of those who assist researchers in accessing and using vital information within their institutions.  The competition will run from the 6^th of March through the 27^th of April 2013.  Online applications will be accepted through April 27^th 12 am GMT.  Submissions of library case studies will be reviewed by a committee of distinguished international librarians and trainers. Thewinner will be announced in June and invited as the first user to join the Research4Life Executive Council. The prize includes an all-expenses paid trip to attend the Partners’ General Meeting in Rome, Italy in September 2013.

“From information literacy training to building infrastructure and concerted outreach, librarians are critical to building a healthy research culture in the developing world—and they are often the unsung heroes,” said Emily Gillingham, Chair of the Executive Council for Research4Life and Director of Library Relations at Wiley, “We hope our competition will raise awareness about the essential role played by librarians across the developing world.”

The Research4Life Librarian Competition is open to all librarians and library staff whose institution is a registered user of one of the Research4Life programmes -  Access to Research in Health (HINARI), Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA), Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE) and Access to Research for Development and Innovation (ARDI). Eligible countries, areas, and territories are available on the Research4Life website.

###

Notes to Editors:
The online application form will be open for submissions from March 6^th through the 27^th of April 2013.  In 2011, Research4Life celebrated HINARI’s 10^th anniversary and produced “Making a Difference”,  case studies about the impact of Research4life on scientists, doctors, nurses and librarians.  Interviews with the Research4Life partners and programme managers are available upon request.

###

About Research4Life

Research4Life (www.research4Life.org) is a public-private partnership between over 200 international scientific publishers, the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, Cornell and Yale Universities in collaboration with the WHO, FAO, UNEP, WIPO, and technology partner, Microsoft.  Research4Life aims to help attain six of the UNs eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015, reducing the scientific knowledge gap between industrialized countries and the developing world.  Since 2001, the four programmes, Access to Research in Health (HINARI), Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA), Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE) and Access to Research for Development and Innovation (ARDI), have grown and developed  to the point where they now give researchers at more than 6,000 institutions in over 100 developing world countries and territories free or low cost online access to nearly 30,000 peer-reviewed international scientific journals, books, and databases provided by the world’s leading science publishers.

In 2003, a woman with AIDS, seven months pregnant and living in a bus terminal in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, was found by nuns and brought to a shelter. After delivering the baby, physician Tim Meade and a team of volunteers looked after the child. Unable to care for her newborn son, the mother turned to “Dr Tim”. As a sign of gratitude, she named the boy Tim. Thus was germinated the idea for Tiny Tim & Friends (TT&F), an organization that specializes in paediatric HIV/AIDS clinical care.
HIV/AIDS takes an enormous toll on Zambia. In Lusaka, around one quarter of the adult population are infected and there are tens of thousands of AIDS-related deaths each year. Mother-to-child transmission is a major route of infection, with more than 14 000 children infected nationally in 2010, out of 80 000 newborns exposed. Tragically, the country is also home to a million AIDS orphans. TT&F screens orphans for HIV in vulnerable communities surrounding Lusaka and provides anti-retroviral drugs, which suppress the HIV virus and stop the progression of AIDS. The charity currently serves almost 500 children and their caregivers through its medical and psychosocial care programme.
Research4Life plays a major role in TT&F’s work, allowing research that informs the development of policies and medical procedures that provide the best possible treatment. Access to HINARI has also allowed the charity to obtain essential information about groups performing related research in similar settings. According to Dr Meade, this makes a big difference in resource-poor areas where published data are often unavailable. “Every issue of just three of the journals accessed through HINARI – AIDS, Journal of Infectious Diseases and Journal of Acquired Immunodeficiency – contain papers relevant to resourcelimited settings and TT&F’s work,” he says.
One of the key policies developed by Dr Meade and his team through their HINARI-assisted research is that mothers with HIV should continue to breastfeed their babies until two years of age, if stable on anti-retroviral medications. This allows children to thrive with minimal risk of the infection. Another is that social workers and their training are crucial to the success of TT&F – training and empowering them leads to the best outcomes for the mothers and children. By providing high-quality medical care and personalized intensive adherence plans, TT&F allows patients to access the medical and social assistance they need, thus prolonging their lives and reducing the transmission of HIV in Zambia.

Text from the book, Making a Difference, available at http://www.research4life.org/case-studies/stories-from-the-field/

Amy Molnar (US) +1 201-748-8844
sciencenewsroom@wiley.com

Over 12,000 Wiley Online Books Made Available in Developing Countries Via Research4Life

Hoboken, NJ, February 6, 2013, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., today announced that its 12,200 Online Books would be made available through the Research4Life initiatives of HINARI, AGORA and OARE, benefitting research and academic communities in 80 low- and middle-income countries including Malawi, Cambodia, and Bolivia.

Research4Life provides 6,000 institutions in developing countries with free or low cost access to peer-reviewed online content from the world’s leading scientific, technical and medical publishers. The addition of Wiley’s Online Books brings the total number of peer reviewed scientific journals, books and databases now available through the public-private Research4life partnership to almost 30,000.

“Our goal with Research4Life is to provide and support quality research in developing countries in order to advance higher education, inform public policy decisions and ultimately improve quality of life,” said Emily Gillingham, Director of Library Relations at Wiley who also serves as the new Chair of the Executive Council for Research4Life. “We hope the addition of this vast collection of Online Books will make a real difference to researchers in countries which can least afford it and as such is a central part of Wiley’s social responsibility program”.

“Through Research4Life we’ve been able to really level the playing field in terms of access to primary research material in the developing world”, said Kimberly Parker, HINARI Programme Manager at the World Health Organization.  “This is vital for supporting local authorship and helping researchers in poorer countries to participate in and contribute to the global scientific knowledge base”.

The Wiley Online Books Collection includes handbooks, dictionaries, companions, encyclopedias and landmark book series from award-winning authors and renowned researchers in the life, health and physical sciences, social sciences and the humanities.  Online Books are available on Wiley Online Library and offer the benefits of unlimited concurrent user access, cross-searching with journals, and no DRM restrictions.  Access to the majority of Wiley’s peer-reviewed journals, the Cochrane Library, Current Protocols and major reference works are already included in the Research4Life programmes.

“We are delighted to be able to add Wiley’s books to Research4Life for access by researchers in eighty countries across Africa, Latin America, and Asia”, said Antonia Seymour, VP and Director of Science, Technical, Medical and Scholarly Books at Wiley.  “Not only will they have access to our 12,200 Online Books already digitized but we will also be adding the 100 or so new books published each month”, she added.

More Information:

Case studies about the impact of Research4life on scientists, doctors, nurses and librarians can be found in the 2012, “Making a Difference” booklet. Interviews with the Research4Life partners and program managers are available upon request.

URL: http://www.research4life.org/competitionbook

About Reseach4Life:
Since 2001, the four programmes, Access to Research in Health (HINARI), Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA), Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE) and Access to Research for Development and Innovation (ARDI), have grown and developed  to the point where they now give researchers at more than 6,000 institutions in over 100 developing world countries and territories free or low cost online access to almost 30,000 peer-reviewed international scientific journals, books, and databases provided by the world’s leading science publishers

URL: www.research4life.org

Contact Reseach4Life:

Charlotte Masiello-Riome

Research4Life Communications Coordinator

communications@research4life.org

About Wiley:

Founded in 1807, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has been a valued source of information and understanding for more than 200 years, helping people around the world meet their needs and fulfil their aspirations. Wiley and its acquired companies have published the works of more than 450 Nobel laureates in all categories: Literature, Economics, Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Peace.

Wiley is a global provider of content and content-enabled workflow solutions in areas of scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly research; professional development; and education. Our core businesses produce scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly journals, reference works, books, database services, and advertising; professional books, subscription products, certification and training services and online applications; and education content and services including integrated online teaching and learning resources for undergraduate and graduate students and lifelong learners. Wiley’s global headquarters are located in Hoboken, New Jersey, with operations in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Canada, and Australia. The Company’s Web site can be accessed at http://www.wiley.com. The Company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbols JWa and JWb.

Published 7 January 2013

We all know that in many parts of the developing world, there are shortages of food, clean water, adequate housing, health care and other resources necessary for a well-functioning economic and social infrastructure. What is less appreciated is how these countries have historically also lacked access to up-to-date scientific research. Not only does this lack of access limit scientific activity; it deprives policymakers of knowledge that could help them address many of the symptoms of national underdevelopment.

For the past decade, Research4Life has been working to close this knowledge gap by providing developing nations with free or very low-cost access to peer-reviewed journals.  more

• How long have you been training in regards to the Research4Life Programmes? What are your focus countries?
  Since April 2004, and the focus countries have been Sub-Sahara Africa (in all four region, East, West, Central and Southern Africa)  

• What has been some of the benefits you have seen directly from your training? Increased registrations for the R4L programs and usage of the programs in countries we have held training workshop?How has the training translated to capacity building for your institutions?
  Our approach is a train-the-trainer model and it’s been incredibly encouraging over the years to see participants go on to share the acquired skills with their colleague librarians, researchers and faculty when they return to their institutions after the workshops. The has helped to get the R4L word out to reach thousands at research and academic institutions across Africa.   

• How has the training continued? (ie. Train the trainer)
  To date, ITOCA has conducted about 85 train-the-trainer workshops in attended by about 3,000 participants in 28 countries.  We estimate that the trained participants have reached at least 15,000 downstream as a result of the training workshops.  

• How many institutes do you normally train in a year timespan, and what counties/cities have you done in the last six months?
  We have conducted 4 workshops in the last 6 months and on average ITOCA conducts 7-8 national workshops annually.

If you are interested in the Research4Life Train the Trainer Programme, contact

• info@research4life.org

Over thirty research trainers from higher institutions of learning and research institutions are undergoing a three day training on effective methodologies to access research material.

The training being conducted by Kigali Institute of Education in collaboration with Research4Life.  More