LONDON, September 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Access to Research in the Developing World

CAB International (Centre for Agricultural Bioscience International) announced today they will be provide free access to 77 recently published CABI books through Research4Life, a global UN-publisher initiative providing free and low cost access to researchers in developing countries. The recent editions on agriculture, plant and veterinary science will be available to eligible institutions as part of AGORA, Research4Life's Global Online Research in Agriculture programme.

Launched by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 2003 in partnership with major publishers, AGORA is celebrating its 10^th Anniversary providing researchers, students, policymakers, non-profits and agriculturalists in developing countries with free and low cost access to a unique digital library in the fields of food, agriculture, environmental science and related social sciences. CABI is a founding member of the AGORA programme, joining as part of its commitment to furthering knowledge management in international development.

The over 70 books offered by CABI include titles published from 2008 to 2010, giving users access to critical peer reviewed information. These books will be added to the current online resources available through AGORA. Currently, over 2200 institutions have registered for access to AGORA which provides access to over 3400 journals, up to 2000 e-books, and up to 20 other information resources, covering agriculture, fisheries, food, nutrition, veterinary science and related biological, environmental and social sciences in public institutions across the world.

Trevor Nicholls, CEO of CABI, said, "A key part of our mission is to strengthen access to research knowledge, especially in the world's poorest countries. As a world class publisher in agriculture and the environment, we're delighted to offer free resources to the researchers who need it most, through this global open initiative."

"This latest addition of books from CABI's high quality selection is a further generous contribution to AGORA from one of the founder publisher partners," said Stephen Rudgard, AGORA programme manager, FAO. "The collection will be greatly appreciated by users."

Additionally, CABI provides free health-related books to HINARI Access to Research in Health Programme - one of the other four Research4Life Programmes - launched and managed by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2002 which enables low and middle income countries to gain access to biomedical and health literature.

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Notes to editors:

Details about eligibility for free access to this information can be found here: http://www.aginternetwork.org/en/about_agora/elegibility.html

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About CABI

CABI is a not for profit organisation that improves people's lives worldwide by providing information and applying scientific expertise to solve problems in agriculture and the environment. Its mission and direction is influenced by its 47 member countries who help guide the activities undertaken as a business. These include scientific publishing, projects and consultancy, information for development and mycological services. CABI's activities contribute directly to achieving Global Development Objectives, particularly those concerned with poverty reduction, environmental sustainability and partnership for development. For more information on CABI go to http://www.cabi.org. CABI Publications and Resources: CABI is a world-leading publisher of bibliographic databases, books, CABI re-index improves searching and retrieval for database products.

About Research4Life

Research4Life (http://www.research4life.org/) is a public-private partnership between over 200 international scientific publishers, the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, Cornell and Yale Universities in collaboration with the WHO, FAO, UNEP, WIPO, and technology partner, Microsoft. Research4Life aims to help attain six of the UNs eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015, reducing the scientific knowledge gap between industrialized countries and the developing world. Since 2001, the four programmes, Access to Research in Health (HINARI), Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA), Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE) and Access to Research for Development and Innovation (ARDI), have grown and developed to the point where they now give researchers at more than 6,000 institutions in over 100 developing world countries and territories free or low cost online access to over 35,000 peer-reviewed international scientific journals, books, and databases provided by the world's leading science publishers. Visit http://www.research4life.org.

Contact

Charlotte Masiello-Riome 

Research4Life Communicationscommunications@research4Life.org 

Twitter: @ R4LPartnership

Sacha Boucherie, +31-20-485-3564

SOURCE Research4Life