Access to health research propels scientific activity in developing countries

["Menefee, Daviess (ELS-NYC)" <D.Menefee@elsevier.com>]

The following press release may be of interest to members of these
lists.  Please forgive any duplication.

Daviess Menefee
Library Relations
Elsevier

Geneva, Switzerland, 19 May 2008 - HINARI Access to Research 
Initiative announced today that its collaborative efforts to 
provide free and low cost access to health research in the 
developing countries have made a significant impact on advancing 
scientific discoveries in these regions.

The program is designed by the World Health Organization and the world's
leading biomedical publishers to provide health sector institutions in
developing countries with timely access to high quality research at low
or no cost. An impact analysis, conducted by Elsevier, has shown that
researchers in the countries benefiting from HINARI have begun to
publish their findings in international peer-reviewed journals at a rate
that is well in excess of the increase seen in the rest of the world.

Over the five-year period from 2002-2006, 105 HINARI countries 
saw a 63 percent growth in the number of authors publishing in 
peer-reviewed journals, compared to 38 percent in 102 non-HINARI 
countries - indicating that HINARI has had a significant impact 
on the participant countries' ability to engage with the global 
scientific community.

"The fact that the countries benefiting from HINARI have seen such a
large increase in the number of their researchers publishing in
international journals is a great testament to the success and a strong
indicator of the need for the HINARI program," said Barbara Aronson, WHO
Library Coordinator at the World Health Organization. "The ability to
share information with researchers around the world is key to enabling
developing countries to advance their scientific capabilities and tackle
issues important to them, such as disease control and health policy
planning. We are thrilled to see HINARI making a positive contribution
towards this goal."

Since its inception in 2002, the program has been embraced by 
academics, researchers and policy makers throughout the 
developing world as essential to their ability to access and use 
research information. HINARI has two important sister programmes: 
AGORA (Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture), 
sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization and OARE 
(Online Access to Research in the Environment) sponsored by the 
United Nations Environment Programme and Yale University.

All three initiatives have the official commitment from the 
participating organizations at least until 2015, which marks the 
target for reaching the United Nations' Millennium Development 
Goals. Measuring growth in scientific output will help evaluate 
the continuing success of these efforts to support the growth of 
science in the developing countries.

For a list of all the partners, please visit
http://extranet.who.int/hinari/en/partners.php

Media Contact:
Kimberly PARKER

HINARI Programme Manager
World Health Organization
parkerk@who.int