ECS Partners with Research4Life to Help Close the Knowledge Gap in the Developing World

All ECS content will be accessible to over 8,200 institutions

Pennington, NJ – (March 28, 2017) – The Electrochemical Society (ECS) is partnering with Research4Life to provide accessibility to over 132,000 articles and abstracts published in the ECS Digital Library. All papers published by ECS will be free to access for more than 8,200 institutions in an effort to reduce the scientific knowledge gap between high-income and low- and middle-income countries by providing free or affordable access to critical scientific research.

The ECS Digital Library is home to the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, the flagship journal of ECS, published continuously since 1902, and to the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology, ECS Electrochemistry Letters, ECS Solid State Letters, Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters, ECS Transactions, ECS Meeting Abstracts, ECS Proceedings Volumes and the ECS quarterly membership magazine, Interface.

The research published in ECS journals directly addresses the sustainability of our planet, with topics ranging from renewable energy storage and conversation to clean water and sanitation.

“Open access, especially in electrochemistry and solid state science, is an important goal for scientific and technological development and, quite simply, creating a better world.” says Roque Calvo, executive director of ECS. “ECS’s partnership with Research4Life is a step toward ensuring that everyone working on these issues, wherever they are in the world, has access to the latest research.”

Since 2002, Research4Life has been partnering with publishers and is now provide scientific knowledge to institutions in 119 countries, areas, and territories in the developing world. They are enabling more than 8,000 institutions to benefit from online access of up to 77,000 peer-reviewed scientific journals, books, and databases. ECS will be joining more than 170 publishers already partnered with Research4Life.

“We are pleased to welcome ECS as a Research4Life partner,” says Daniel Dollar, chair of the Research4Life executive council. “ECS’s commitment to Research4Life will help to advance the partnership’s goal of reducing the scientific knowledge gap between industrialized countries and the developing world.”

This partnership aligns directly with ECS’s Free the Science initiative, aimed at making all research published in the ECS Digital Library freely available to all readers, while remaining free for authors to publish. ECS believes that the opening and democratizing of this information will lead to rapid advances in some of the world’s most pressing issues.

Free the Science can assist people all over the world who need the content to create their own solutions to sustainability,” Calvo says. “Our work with Reserch4Life give us the chance to show some of that vision to the world.”

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About ECS
Founded in 1902, ECS (electrochem.org) is led by scientists, for scientists. ECS advances electrochemistry and solid state science by publishing peer-reviewed scholarly journals (ecsdl.org), convening scientific meetings, and supporting emerging scientists in our fields. With Free the Science (freethescience.org), ECS envisions a new publishing model without costs to authors and readers so that collectively we can achieve a cleaner, safer, healthier, and greener world for us all.

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