As a leading global provider of scientific research to a free subscriber base, Research Media welcomes the growing campaign to break the ‘stranglehold’ of academic journals and allow all research papers to be shared online.

Dubbed the ‘Academic Spring’, over 9,500 researchers and academics have protested against the exorbitant prices charged for individual journals published by the science and health publisher Elsevier, which, they say, restricts authors’ rights to achieve easily accessible distribution of their work.

The Wellcome Trust has also recently published its open access policy, which supports unrestricted access to the published outputs of research and echoes the policy guidelines on easy access to scientific research released by UNESCO.

Dedicated to the delivery of science, technology and research dissemination, Research Media advocates a policy of open access for many of its services. As part of our dissemination offering Research Media produce a suite of flagship publications under the imprint International Innovation. With discrete publications covering Climate, Energy, Environment, Food & Agriculture, Healthcare, Nano & Materials Technology, ICT, Transport and US Research, International Innovation is the leading global dissemination resource for the wider scientific, technology and research communities.

Simon Jones, Director at Research Media, says: “Everyone should be able access scientific research, which ultimately could have an impact on their lives and wellbeing. I firmly believe in the power of transparent information to dispel myths and create a climate of public support and trust. We have always been committed to providing open access to research undertaken by scientists worldwide through our free subscription service and online tools”.

To find out more about more about the range of dissemination services available from Research Media, call +44 117 3700 828 or email info@researchmedia.eu.

COST’s Personalised Medicine event focuses on a rational approach to bioinformatics, medicinal chemistry and medicine

During the 17-22 June 2012, the Personalised Medicine: Better Healthcare for the future event, with whom Research Media Ltd are partnered with, will take place in Larnaca, Cyprus. The event’s key objectives are to bring together researchers and advanced scientists from different scientific areas, widen conceptions of personalised medicine, and provide education to the public and physicians about new developments in the field.

The event hopes to discuss personalised ICT services, as well as the provision of genetic and genomic information, designed to give each patient an individual therapeutically-active drug whilst minimising adverse effects. A wide range of workshops and sessions will be held during the conference to address these issues, and a variety of speakers will be offering their expertise. Some of the speakers include Mark Baker (European Brain Council, UK), Ursula Gundert-Remy (Federal Institute of Risk Assessment, Germany), Jef De Brabander (UT Southwestern Medical Centre, U.S.) and Jonathan Knowles (Institute for Molecular Medicine, Finland).

Among many other areas of personalised medicine, the event will look at nanorobots and the human body, new targets and inhibitors, natural products for drug creation and novelties in ITC toward personalised medicine. Director of Research Media Ltd, Simon Jones comments that “the event will address the formidable challenges we are faced with in reaching the universal goal of high quality personalised medicine for patients”.

To find out more about this event, follow the link to their website: http://www.cost.eu/events/pemed

Research Media is proud to announce it will partner Green Week for the third year running. Green Week – held on 22-25 May in Brussels – is recognised as the largest conference in Europe to tackle environmental issues. Research Media will be providing coverage of the event in its flagship International Innovation publication, detailing the key issues, objectives and outcomes, as well as featuring interviews with keynote speakers

Nick Brake, Director of Research Media, is enormously excited by the prospect of partnering the event for a third year: “We are delighted to once again be involved in supporting Green Week by communicating to our readership the key decisions made on tackling the most pressing environmental challenges facing Europe today. We also believe that, with so many key decision makers in attendance, the visibility this will afford to the research efforts we disseminate cannot be underestimated and we hope that our presence at the events will attract a wealth of new readers”.

The 12^th edition of Green Week, the biggest annual conference on European environment policy, will be held in Brussels on 22-25 May under the theme ‘Every Drop Counts – The Water Challenge’. The conference will consist of around 40 sessions each dedicated to assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of EU water policy and engaging sustainably with methods of preserving water. Green Week will be hosting programmes relating to a number of water-based concerns including ‘Green Infrastructure for Water,’ ‘Water Pricing – Economic Tools for Water Policy,’ ‘Industrial Emissions in Water,’ along with subject areas including fishing, flooding, water information systems and a view of non-European countries.

As the largest annual conference to address environmental issues and policy in Europe, Green Week offers an exclusive opportunity to debate and discuss water issues and a chance to meet with companies, organisations, academics, researchers, EU members and the media among many others. Its success last year (3,160 participants) indicates the likelihood that this year’s event will be a hit.

The closing sessions of Green Week will address the future for EU water policies, with important decision makers in attendance such as Bart Devos, European Youth Water Ambassador, and European Commissioner for Environment Janez Potočnik.

International Innovation is a unique publication dedicated to the dissemination of the latest science, research and technology. It offers a bespoke service to researchers and leading scientific institutions who wish to highlight and share their latest work with those in the global research community.

For more details on this event, please visit: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/greenweek

International Innovation will be featuring an interview with ESG about their conference in our forthcoming environment publication, going to press at the end of March, and distributing publications at the event.

The ESG Project is primarily centred on addressing issues of global governance. With support from the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), the ESG Project was founded in 2009, where their first conference was held in Amsterdam. This year’s meeting will focus on directing human societies around the world toward methods of “preventing, mitigating and adapting to global and local environmental change and earth system transformation, within the normative context of sustainable development,” announced the ESG Project.

The ESG project conference proposes to address four major themes:

• Working toward a just, equitable and legitimate ESG
• Providing a legitimate, democratic and accountable ESG
• Linking the ‘5 As’ of ESG (Architecture, Agency, Adaptiveness, Accountability, Allocation and Access)
• Transforming the institutional framework for sustainable development

Some of the confirmed speakers include Eugene A Rosa, Professor of Natural Resource and Environmental Policy at Washington University; Timmons Roberts, Director of the Centre for Environmental Studies and Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at Brown University, and Jan Aart Schole, Professor in PAIS and Professorial Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick.

“The conference will particularly focus on research about accountability and legitimacy, and on allocation and access, critically examining questions of justice, democracy, legitimacy and accountability in research and practice,” the Project explains.

For more information on the ESG conference, follow the link to their website: http://www.lund2012.earthsystemgovernance.org

Research Media will be partnering a major international scientific conference entitled Planet under Pressure, which will be taking place in London’s International Conference Centre (ICC) 26-29 March. The aim of the conference is to focus on solutions to the global sustainability challenge and provide research and knowledge on how societies can work toward a more sustainable way of life.

Among the major issues mentioned above, the conference will also look at equally important topics including; strategies for defining planetary boundaries, coastal zone conditions, state of the world’s cities, information, technology for sustainability in developing countries and life in extreme environments. Across the four days of the conference, Planet under Pressure will allocate each day to a particular region of importance when focusing on global sustainability. The programme will be ordered as follows:

Day1: State of the planet

Day 2: Options and opportunities

Day 3: Challenges to progress

Day 4: Ways ahead

The conference proposes that scientists from the sustainability research community must work effectively with decision makers in policy, development, business and the larger non-government sector in order to address global issues and promote knowledge on how to handle certain damaging, unmanageable changes.

With International Innovation being distributed at this key climate event, Research Media Director, Simon Jones, is excited about the wide-ranging audience the publication can reach: “We are very pleased to be increasing our readership at such an important conference, and hope that this partnership can continue”, he says.

Various speakers from institutes such as Warren Evans from the World Bank, Achim Steiner from the United Nations Environment Programme and Sybil Seitzinger from the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme in Sweden, including many others, will be attending the conference. Interestingly, Jeremy Bentham from energy and petrochemical company Shell International will be one of the speakers discussing the vision for the planet in 2050. Many key topics will be covered over the four days, such as climate, ecological degradation, human wellbeing, planetary thresholds, food security, energy, governance across scales and poverty alleviation.

To find out more about the Planet under Pressure conference you can visit their website at http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net

To mark the end of the project and to present its results, the INESS Final Conference will be held at the UIC in Paris on 3 February 2012.

The programme of the free, one-day conference will consist of:

• Morning session – presentations on projects results and lessons learned
• Afternoon session – marketplace and breakout sessions where each work-stream will demonstrate the results, tools and methods used and discuss specific topics

The main objective of INESS is to define and develop specifications for a new generation of interlocking systems, and apply methods and tools capable of reducing LCC and enhancing the standardisation process. In the context of current European policy, it is hereby expected to foster signalling equipment migrations and support the rollout of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS).

The European Commission and the European railway associations, together with the railway supply industry, are working closely together to define an efficient migration strategy for ERTMS.  INESS will support the development of a new generation of interlocking systems with optimal harmonised design and interfaces towards adjacent systems such as the European Train Control System (ETCS) Radio Block Centre and outdoor equipment, especially connecting to ETCS.

Who you will meet:

The Conference will be of interest to those working in the field of railway standardisation and specification work, not only in the official standardisation bodies but also in the various sectoral organisations who are increasingly involved in this subject. The INESS project is producing results which should be of significant interest to all those involved in the very important field of railway standardisation.

Benefits of Attending:

Delegates will

• Understand project results and lessons learned
• Learn INESS advantages for the Railways and INESS advantages for the Industry
• Discuss in detail specific topics
• Benefit from networking opportunities with peers and vendors

The Conference is open to all EU participants. The event will be held in English.

For more information about INESS project, the conference and registration to the conference, please contact Maria Lafont (lafont@uic.org), or visit the dedicated website at www.iness.eu/spip.php?article7.

Registration has started for the free INtegrated European Signalling System (INESS) Training Programme, 7-9 March 2012

The INESS training programme will provide:

• Explanations on benefits of a common method for describing functionalities to the railway asset managers
• Dissemination about the common kernel and explanations regarding the advantages for infrastructure managers, industry partners and safety authorities
• Explanations of the advantages of using the common kernel in order to convince standardisation bodies to work towards a European standard
• A presentation about the Interlocking-RBC interface FFFIS, focusing on the benefits of standard interfaces
• A demonstration of the advantages of using the INESS architecture/ interface specifications
• A demonstration of the process towards a proposal for a standardised system architecture to standard-setting and regulatory bodies, safety authorities and the European Railway Agency
• A presentation about the harmonised testing and commissioning of interlockings

Who you will meet :

• Railway Infrastructure Managers – Management & Engeneering level
• Suppliers – Management & Engeneering level
• Railway operators
• Industry
• Data managers and Project managers
• Procurement department from the European Railways
• Business development and Financial department from the European industry

This training programme will be held in Paris at UIC Headquarters

Included :

• Lunches and coffee breaks during working sessions
• Documentation package in English
• 1 social event (dinner) on 7 March 2012

Further information and registration details can be found via www.iness.eu/spip.php?article13.

As such, Research Media Ltd will be providing coverage of the events in its flagship International Innovation publication, detailing the key issues, objectives and outcomes, as well as featuring interviews with prominent members of the ESF. Furthermore, complimentary copies of International Innovation will be available at the events.

International Innovation is a unique publication dedicated to the dissemination of the latest science, research and technology. It offers a bespoke service to researchers and leading scientific institutions who wish to highlight and share their latest work with those in the global research community, producing tailored articles and interviews to suit the needs of its clients.

Nick Brake, Director of Research Media Ltd, is enormously excited by the prospect of being an official media partner of all 2012 ESF events: “We are thrilled to announce our collaboration with the ESF at their upcoming events. The visibility that this will afford to the projects that we disseminate cannot be underestimated and we hope that our presence at the events will attract a wealth of new readers”.

The ESF is an independent, non-governmental organisation dedicated to pan-European scientific networking and collaboration and has played an essential role in mediating a multitude of heterogeneous research cultures and agencies. With a total budget of €61 million in 2010 and a projected economic impact in excess of €1 billion, it is a major driving force for advanced research in Europe.

To guarantee your FREE subscription to International Innovation and to ensure that you stay up to date with the latest ESF events, outcomes and interviews, please visit our dedicated subscriptions page at www.research-europe.com/subscribe.php.

Furthermore, for an overview of the ESF’s 2012 events, please see http://www.esf.org/activities/esf-conferences/2012-upcoming-events.html?year=2012.

Advances in global health are increasingly reliant upon product development partnerships that pool the talents and resources of public, private, academic and philanthropic sectors in a bid for meaningful change. We give the last word this month to Research!America, on the progress being made in the fight to produce a viable vaccine for HIV/AIDS

The early days of the HIV/ AIDS epidemic were ones of widespread public fear, epitomised by the case of Ryan White, the Kokomo, Indiana middle schooler expelled under the false belief that other children could ‘catch’ AIDS from being near him. We’ve come a long, long way since then. A few months after White’s death in 1990, Congress passed the Ryan White Care Act to provide last-resort funding for AIDS treatment. Public misunderstanding about the disease is largely a thing of the past, thanks to the work of committed advocates, including people living with HIV, their loved ones, government leaders such as former Surgeon General C Everett Koop, and policy makers. More recently, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has been widely praised for bringing much-needed funding to provide treatment.

What has received less attention is the research that has made AIDS treatment and prevention possible. U.S. public funding for HIV research – much of it through federal appropriations to the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for International Development, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – has spurred significant scientific discoveries. Moreover, recent scientific breakthroughs led the National Institutes of Health’s Dr Anthony Fauci to say that he finally sees ‘a light at the end of the tunnel’. The end of the AIDS pandemic may at last be within our grasp.

Several recent scientific breakthroughs have occurred: the 2009 Thailand vaccine trial that showed, for the first time, that an effective AIDS vaccine is conceptually possible; the 2011 finding reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that antiretroviral treatment in an infected person can prevent new infections in non-infected partners; and research in broadly neutralising antibodies that means an AIDS vaccine is closer than ever before. Strategic partnerships between the public sector and the private sector have contributed meaningfully to this progress.

To take just one of these examples, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative discovery reported in Nature in August 2011 described the identification of 17 powerful, broadly neutralising antibodies that will allow vaccine researchers to search more quickly and efficiently for an AIDS vaccine. The analysis also hints at how future vaccines might be formulated to maximise their effectiveness. Such discoveries could also pave the way for a universal flu vaccine that would protect against different strains over many years (including pandemic flu), potentially alleviating the need for the annual flu shot.

This progress would not have been achieved without the teams of diverse partners working across the public, private, philanthropic and academic sectors to speed development of global health technologies along the R&D pipeline. In non-profit collaborations like these, called product development partnerships, or PDPs, the best minds come together to accelerate progress on drugs, vaccines, and diagnostic needed to protect the health of impoverished populations in developing countries from diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and tropical diseases.

What’s unique about this type of public-private partnership is the model’s unprecedented efficiency. The health technologies often are destined for the world’s most vulnerable populations in countries least likely to have a viable market for even lifesaving tools. So PDPs have to work smart to keep R&D costs down and to move through the pipeline – from basic research, through clinical trials, and ultimately, to production and distribution of a health product – quickly. PDPs harness the right partners at the right time to accelerate progress for promising new health technologies, including vaccines, drugs and diagnostics.

HIV/AIDS is just one of the global killers on which PDPs have set their sights, and the success PDPs have achieved in global health technology should be enough to convince the philanthropic community and public and private sector stakeholders to embrace the PDP model with an eye towards increased investment. It’s not a question of whether the work of PDPs will save millions of lives; it’s simply a matter of how quickly we can deploy this strategy to accelerate human progress.

Article contributed by Eleanor Dehoney, Vice President, Policy and Programs, and Danielle Doughman, Program Manager, Global Health R&D Advocacy, at Research!America.

www.researchamerica.org

Research Media Ltd is delighted to announce that it will be an official media partner of the COST Exploratory Workshop on Sustainable Protein Supply.

The one day event will take place in Amsterdam on Friday 16 March and will provide an opportunity for researchers and policy makers to discuss the most pressing concerns in supplying a sustainable protein supply in the future. In light of the FAO’s estimation that global meat consumption will rise to 463 tonnes in 2050, a collaborative approach to meeting demand and developing policies that promote sustainability is essential.

Nick Brake, Director of Research Media Ltd asserted: “We are thrilled to be an official media partner of the COST Exploratory Workshop on Sustainable Protein Supply. Sustainable meat and protein production is an important topic and a growing concern, and we hope that the event will make a major contribution to a more sustainable future”.

Key topics to be discussed at the event include improvements to the animal production chain, replacing animal protein with that sourced from plants, alternatives to conventional animal protein such as in vitro meat, and improved integration of the system.

Please see the COST website for further information: www.cost.esf.org