AMSTERDAM, March 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- An agreement between the Association of Arab Universities and Elsevier, the information analytics business specializing in science and health, has been reached to co-create the Arab Journals Platform, an open electronic network of scholarly journals that will help raise awareness of leading research carried out in the Arab world.

The new network will launch in 2019 and will be hosted, managed and published on Digital Commons, Elsevier's professional grade open publishing platform. The new network will connect Arab research to all parts of the world through an optimized solution that facilitates discovery of journals on search engines and inclusion in the academic search engine Google Scholar. Digital Commons is engineered for discovery, allowing researchers and scholars to connect with a global audience of peers. An open access approach allows for research and scholarship to pass freely into the hands of those who can do great things with such knowledge.

The Arab Journals Platform is set to launch with 100 journals in its initial phase, with a goal of increasing to 1,000 journals. The network is open to members of the Association of Arab Universities and non-members within the League of Arab States. Institutions wishing to submit journals to be considered for inclusion in the Arab Journals Platform are invited to send queries to journals@aaru.edu.jo.

"The Association of Arab Universities offers this unique initiative to raise the world's awareness of the strong academic research and publishing being done throughout the Arab world," states His Excellency Prof. Amr Ezzat Salama, Secretary General of the AARU and former Minister of Higher Education for Egypt. "We feel that Elsevier is best positioned to provide the efficient and effective journal management mechanisms needed so our academics have the greatest opportunity to be recognized by their research communities."

The objectives of the Arab Journals Platform include:

• Building a unified network approved by the Association of Arab Universities and its members, which aims to represent a single voice of academic research in the Arab world.
• Making full-text articles in scholarly journals published by Arab universities openly accessible so they are more visible, more influential and more global.
• Providing technical support to Arab editors to help their journals fulfill many of the qualitative standard requirements of databases such as Scopus, the largest abstract and indexing database of peer-reviewed journals, books and conference proceedings, and increase the chances for journals to be accepted for indexing.

As part of the agreement, Elsevier will support the Arab Journal Platform by providing publishing expertise, technical support and editor training.

"Elsevier shares the Association of Arab Universities' goal of increasing the visibility of their research," confirms Said Taha, Vice President of Research Intelligence, Elsevier. "We are privileged to work with the AARU to support the creation of the Arab Journals Platform. This is an exciting partnership where Elsevier can share our publishing and platform expertise with the Arab world's scholarly authors and they, in turn, can apply the capabilities of Digital Commons to broaden the reputation of their research and increase their collaboration opportunities with international peers.

"By enhancing the global exposure of journals published by Arab scholars, knowledge sharing will be improved as will research outcomes and impact."

About the Association of Arab Universities
The Association of Arab Universities is a non-governmental organization that has an independent legal charter. Its current membership includes 280 Arab universities. AARU was established in 1964 upon a resolution by the Arab League, and a permanent Secretariat General was designated in 1969. Its permanent headquarters have been in Amman since 1984, the capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. www.aaru.edu.jo

About Elsevier
Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps scientists and clinicians to find new answers, reshape human knowledge, and tackle the most urgent human crises. For 140 years, we have partnered with the research world to curate and verify scientific knowledge. Today, we're committed to bringing that rigor to a new generation of platforms. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and professional education; including ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, 39,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professionals and business customers across industries. www.elsevier.com

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Media contact
David Tucker, Global Communications
Elsevier
+44-79-20-536-160
d.tucker@elsevier.com

SOURCE Elsevier