Open Archive: "Intellectual Platform for Developing Countries"

The International Development Research Centre (IDRC), an arms-length organization of the Canadian government (a crown corporation), has announced make their research materials freely accessible. Some highlights from the IDRC website (http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-92447-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html):

"The Open Archive will provide full access over the Internet to IDRC’s rich research archive. In addition to making information more freely available, this initiative will provide IDRC-funded researchers with a much-needed outlet to publish and showcase their work.

The world of scholarly communications is rapidly changing. The emerging culture of protecting intellectual property, soaring costs of accessing research literature, and difficulties in having research published in traditional journals are restricting the development of research capacity in the South.

The Open Archive will help Southern researchers to engage in the international dialogue on important development issues and increase the impact of their research.

Throughout its 35-year history, IDRC has believed that to bring about positive change in people's lives, knowledge should be shared. Research results and documents generated by IDRC-supported projects, IDRC recipients, and IDRC staff represent a tangible intellectual output of the Centre’s mandate.

The Open Archive will streamline and centralize the capture of IDRC project outputs and research documents. It will raise the visibility and facilitate the retrieval of the vast array of IDRC materials by consolidating them in a well-managed, indexed, secure, and permanent location.

As a first step, IDRC will build a demonstration model in early 2006.

By creating an Open Archive, IDRC promotes transparency of its results-based research and participates in the global movement to remove barriers — economic, social, and geographic — to the sharing of knowledge. "