The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has announced an expansion of the Access to Research for Development and Innovation (aRDi) programme to now include a total of around 200 online scientific and technical journals. Academic publisher Taylor & Francis, a founding partner of aRDi, has agreed to contribute a further 150 journals to the programme. These journals seek to provide in-depth coverage of applied science and engineering, physical science, and environmental, biological, food and agricultural sciences.
The addition of these publications is seen to represent a major step forward in efforts by WIPO and its partners in the publishing industry to facilitate access by developing and least developed countries to critical information resources. Thus, it will reportedly contribute significantly to WIPO's objective of promoting technological innovation and the transfer and dissemination of technology in developing and least developed countries.
The aRDi programme, originally launched in 2009, is a public-private partnership which aims to provide industrial property offices, universities and research institutes in developing and least developed countries with free or low-cost access to selected online scientific and technical journals. It is administered by WIPO in cooperation with various science and technology publishers including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Institute of Physics, Elsevier, Institute of Physics, John Wiley & Sons, Nature Publishing Group, National Academy of Sciences, National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources, Oxford University Press, Royal Society of Chemistry, Sage Publications, Springer Science+Business Media, and Taylor & Francis Group.
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