Research4Life Partners Newsletter June 2018

Published: Monday 11th June 2018
Category: Partner Newsletter

Table of Contents

Note from the Editors


Dear Partners,
Our next General Partners Meeting on the 18th of July in Washington is coming up soon and we are looking forward to celebrating the latest achievements of Research4Life with all of our partners. One of our most important accomplishments this past year has been the launch of GOALI, the fifth Research4Life programme which provides access to law-related content and contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goal 16 – Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.
Another significant achievement has been the launch of DAR or Digital Access to Research, a collaboration with the newly established UN Technology Bank which will bring new Research4Life capacity building opportunities and funds for least developed countries. Last but not least, with your help, we’ve managed to boost our content offering of peer reviewed resources to more than 85,000—a significant milestone.
Read on to find out more about these exciting accomplishments, recent events, training and technology updates and the Research4Life stats & facts. Please share the news across your networks and consider joining one of our Research4Life teams to work on the continuous improvement of the Research4Life experience from technology to governance, capacity building and communications.
Ylann Schemm (The Elsevier Foundation) and Karna Wegner (FAO)
Co-chairs, Research4Life Communications & Marketing Team

Research4Life Partners Meeting in Washington

This year our Research4Life General Partners Meeting will be held hosted at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC on Wednesday 18 July 2018. As always, our General Partners Meeting promises to be a full day of updates, new avenues and rich discussions. Partners will come together for dinner on the 17th and additional satellite meetings will be held on both the 17th and 18th July for our various Research4Life working groups. We hope that you or a colleague from your organisation, will be able to join us in person at our core annual partnership event. Please contact [email protected] if you plan to attend.

2018 GOALI launch


Research4Life successfully launched GOALI (Global Online Access to Legal Information) on March 6 at ILO headquarters in Geneva with core partners including the International Labour Organization, the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School, the Cornell Law School Library, Brill Nijhoff and other publishers. GOALI provides free or low-cost access to legal information and training to promote research and the rule of law in low and middle income countries, contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 16 – Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. Some of the key topics covered by GOALI include international law, human rights, humanitarian and labour law – areas that can help strengthen legal frameworks and institutions in many developing countries. Watch the livestream of the GOALI launch.
If you want to know more about GOALI download brochure or the infographics available in English, Spanish and French.

DAR: a New Research4Life Partner Programme


On 22 September 2017 the United Nations officially launched the Technology Bank, a new body dedicated to least developed countries (LDCs) with the aim of improving the use of scientific and technological solutions, including information, in the world’s poorest countries. In 2018, the Tech Bank established Digital Access to Research or the DAR collaboration with Research4Life to promote digital access to research and technical knowledge across 12 LDCs.
DAR brings essential capacity building funding to Research4Life and is expected to run over the course of 10 years, and will eventually cover all the LDCs. In each country, a tailored outreach and training programme will be developed to promote use of Research4Life to strengthen education and research. DAR’s first year focus countries represent a range of working languages and geographic challenges and include:
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and United Republic of Tanzania. DAR will help users in these countries to get the best results from Research4Life and in turn inform and improve the overall user experience in the long run.


New Research4Life Website

We will have a new and refreshed website to share with you at the 2018 General Partners Meeting. Our updated site will be multilingual, created with responsive design and have many improvements to navigation, content structure and user experience.
There is a whole host of smaller but impactful changes to make your experience of the Research4Life website that much better for you.
Be the first to experience the new website by registering to our Research4Life news channels.


Capacity Development Team Highlights


It has been a busy six months of capacity building activities, many given by key partners such as Librarians Without Borders, MLA and ITOCA. Here are some of the recent highlights from the Capacity Development Team:

  • Hinari workshops and trainings were given in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Angola, Tunisia, Ghana, Egypt and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Additionally, a Hinari distance learning course supported by ITOCA and Librarians Without Borders gathered almost 40 people who completed the course with flying colors. Finally a webinar on Quality Care supported through Hinari was held last month in collaboration with WHO Global Learning Laboratory.
  • AGORA: FAO/AGORA held workshops in Cairo, Nepal and Bangladesh. For online training, the AGORA team started the year with the AGORA online course entitled “Fundamentals of Information Literacy and Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture” which was later offered in French and Spanish.
  • A 2.5-day OARE workshop was hosted at the United Nations Offices in Nairobi, Kenya on the past November 2017.
  • ARDI: Working with the Technology and Innovation Support Center (TISC) program, ARDI has delivered workshops in Namibia, Comoros, Benin, Ukraine and Burkina Faso. Looking ahead, ARDI workshops are coming up in Malawi, Rwanda, The Gambia, Cote d’Ivoire and Botswana.


Tech Update

In June 2017, The Research4Life Technology team has been working to improve our portals and services and were able to share several new enhancements for Research4Life programme users.
From the beginning of this year, all institutions registered for any of the Research4Life programmes (Hinari, AGORA, OARE, ARDI and GOALI) get access to all programme portals with their credentials. New registered institutions no longer receive programme specific credentials but a general Research4Life access.
This means that any Research4Life user can now access up to 85,000 resources of Research4Life from all programmes.


2018 Librarians without Borders Grant Winners

The Medical Library Association (MLA) and the Elsevier Foundation have announced the recipients of the 2018 MLA HINARI/Research4Life Grants.
Funded by the Elsevier Foundation, these grants will support Hinari/Research4Life training activities that promote the use of the programs’ scientific research resources in emerging/low income countries. The recipients will use the grants to benefit individuals to obtain skills to effectively and efficiently use the Hinari/Research4Life resources and also become trainers for their institutions or country.

  • Emily J. Glenn, McGoogan Library of Medicine, University of Nebraska, USA.
  • Phuntsho Norbu, Khesar Gyalpo University of Medical Sciences in Bhutan, Bhutan.
  • Mboni Amiri Ruzegea, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Tanzania.
  • Xan Goodman, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA.

Congratulations to the winners!
Read more about the winning projects and stay tuned for the 2019 grant applications. Deadline is December 1st 2018.


Stories of Change


By providing access to scientific and technical information, Research4Life is making a difference in the lives of many students, researchers, librarians and health practitioners around the globe. We want to show you how this is happening through a series of stories and case studies.
Our latest story from Bangladesh shows how a librarian in Dhaka is supporting hundreds of doctors to access up-to-date health research through Hinari at the biggest diarrhea hospital in the world.

“Stories of Change” were made possible through a grant from the Elsevier Foundation.


Website and social media

The Research4Life social media community and web audience has grown significantly during the past years. With almost 15,000 followers through our social media channels and more than 12,000 visitors each month the visibility of the content shared through our channels is a strong feature for those who want to promote access to research.
The Research4Life website is a great platform to share resources and information. With a new and refreshed website coming soon, partners can now not only share information and updates but also organize webinars and training in different languages.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Youtube.

Newsletter Updates and Privacy Policy


Numbers of resources update

On May 25 the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) issued by the EU came into effect. This new regulation will affect the way organizations process and store personal data.
Research4Life provides users, and others who have expressed their interest, with updates and news concerning its programmes and activities. In order to do so, your name and contact information is stored in a private register. This information is not public, never shared and has no third-party involvement. By providing us with your contact details, you are agreeing to us appropriately storing and processing your contact information.
Should you wish to unsubscribe or update your subscription preferences at any moment, please click on the link at the bottom of this email, or contact us at [email protected]. When no action is taken, you will continue to receive our newsletters.

*If you are a Research4Life partner interested in sharing your activities in this newsletter contact us. The next edition comes in October 2018.

Hinari