Stories From the Field: How Access to Scientific Literature is Improving the Livelihoods of Communities Around the World

Published: Wednesday 25th January 2012
Category: News

©FAO/Alessia Pierdomenico

Click here to download the Research4Life Making a Difference Booklet (Low Resolution)

To celebrate Research4Life’s 10th anniversary in 2011, we launched a user experience competition. We asked users to share with us how HINARI, AGORA or OARE has improved their work, life and community. In total we received some 60 entries from countries in all five continents. This impressive array of inspiring testimonies revealed a wealth of positive impacts brought about by Research4Life. This book celebrates the stories behind some of these competition entries.

This illuminating series of case studies provides insights into how access to the results of peer-reviewed research from Research4Life publisher partners is benefiting the health, well-being, and economic and social development of communities in the developing world, as well as contributing to greater environmental health and awareness.

As you read through the following pages, you will discover how access to HINARI, AGORA and OARE has:

• allowed a doctor in Ethiopia to successfully treat a patient with a rare and serious condition, and helped his hospital to deliver more effective training to orthopaedic physicians;

• enabled local researchers, scholars and scientists at a Malawi agricultural college to produce quality and well-researched project reports, scientific papers, theses and dissertations;

• enabled a Nepalese paediatrician to save children’s lives through better treatment of diarrhoeal diseases, at the same time as developing his hospital’s journal into a scientifically rigorous publication;

• helped a physician to improve the lives of HIV-infected children in Zambia;

• allowed a Nigerian researcher to complete his PhD and other research on organic agriculture, biopesticides and biofertilizers, while facilitating his acceptance into the global research community in his discipline;

• helped a researcher from Burkina Faso to develop better and more informed scientific writing skills, produce focused research that he can discuss with top researchers worldwide, compete more effectively for research funding, and deliver better teaching programmes;

• allowed a Sudanese policy-maker to introduce evidence-based policy development designed to improve the Sudanese people’s health in the long term;

• enabled a midwife to improve maternity care in Zimbabwe and reduce maternal and neonatal mortality rates.

If reading this book encourages you to become further involved in our programmes, as a contributing publisher, a beneficiary developing-world institution, or as a donor please contact us at [email protected]

Richard Gedye
Director of Publishing Outreach Programmes
International Association of Scientific,Technical & Medical Publishers (STM)

Hinari