STM and UN's WIPO launch joint project

["Janice Kuta" <kuta@stm-assoc.org>]

News Release

International Association of STM Publishers and UN World 
Intellectual Property Organization launch "Access to Research for 
Development and Innovation" (ARDI)

DEVELOPING WORLD PATENT OFFICES RECEIVE ACCESS TO 150 CORE 
TECHNICAL PUBLICATIONS

OXFORD/UK -- 23 July 2009 -- STM (International Association of 
Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers) today announced a 
partnership with WIPO (UN World Intellectual Property 
Organization) to launch ARDI (Access to Research for Development 
and Innovation) providing access to a range of core research 
technical journals and other serial publications to patent 
offices in more than 100 developing countries, including all the 
50 Least Developed Countries. ARDI has the support of the 
International Publishers Association.

Access will be free to patent offices in the 50 Least Developed 
Countries and will be at a very low cost to patent offices in 57 
other developing countries. The patent offices and some approved 
research and academic institutions will be given direct access to 
the full content on the publishers' web sites. The programme will 
go live by the end of the year.

Through Access to Research for Development and Innovation (ARDI), 
STM and WIPO are increasing resources available to patent offices 
in some of the poorest countries in the world where encouraging 
local innovation is a key element in the development of national 
economies. The 150 technical publications on a core list compiled 
by WIPO are published by a large number of international 
publishers: commercial, not for profit, scientific, and 
professional.

Initially, selected publications from the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of 
Physics, Elsevier, the National Academy of Sciences, Nature 
Publishing Group, Oxford University Press, Sage, Springer Science 
+ Business Media and Wiley-Blackwell will be available. As other 
publishers join the programme, more journals and magazines will 
be available.

ARDI will run at least for the time span of the UN's Millennium 
Development Goals (2015)

"STM member publishers are pleased to work with WIPO to increase 
resources available to patent offices in more than 100 countries. 
The new ARDI programme provides free or very low cost access to a 
core group of publications. ARDI fits well with "Research4Life", 
three successful UN agency sponsored programmes providing similar 
access to original research in health, agriculture and 
environmental sciences. Jayne Marks, Chair, International 
Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, Vice 
President & Editorial Director, Sage Publications

"The Institute of Physics is pleased to take part in this WIPO 
programme to accelerate technical development in the Majority 
World through access to our journal Measurement Science and 
Technology," said Jerry Cowhig, Managing Director of IOP 
Publishing

"WIPO is extremely pleased to launch the ARDI programme, a new 
public-private partnership with major global scientific and 
technical publishers and with the support of our sister UN 
agencies WHO, FAO and UNEP, as well as the International 
Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers. Access 
to the knowledge contained in scientific and technical literature 
is critical to the innovation process. This complements the 
valuable access to technical information contained in patent 
documents, which WIPO's Patentscope=AE search service already 
provides. Such practical programs which enable developing and 
least developed countries to access and exploit such information 
effectively are an important priority for WIPO." Mr. Francis 
Gurry, Director General, WIPO

STM
The International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical 
Publishers (STM) is a global trade association with approximately 
100 member publishing organisations, both large and small, and 
for-profit and not-for-profit, collectively responsible for about 
60% of the global output of research articles each year. STM's 
mission is assisting publishers and their authors with their 
activities by disseminating results of STM research, assisting 
national and international organisations and industries to 
improve electronic dissemination of STM information, and working 
with international and national publishers associations and other 
governmental and professional bodies, concerned with these tasks. 
www.stm-assoc.org

For more information, please contact:
Maurice Long at long@stm-assoc.org

Janice E. Kuta
Director of Marketing & Membership
International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical 
Publishers