YEREVAN, February 16. / ARKA /. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has made all its economic and development research on Asia and the Pacific available under “open access initiative”, a principle that promotes unrestricted online access to scholarly research so that it can be more widely distributed and used, the multilateral lender said Thursday.
The open access initiative combines the creation and launch of a new open access website with the adoption of more liberal terms of use for ADB copyrighted knowledge products. Open access removes the need for any form of payment or permission to gain access, read, download, use or distribute an ADB publication.
“The ADB is at the forefront of development thinking and practice in Asia and the Pacific and everyone—from a graduate student studying in Azerbaijan to a government official in Fiji—should be empowered with the right to access and use our knowledge and expertise as they wish,” said Bindu Lohani, ADB Vice-President for Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development. “Open access removes all barriers to accessing our research.”
The open access website was launched on Thursday with more than 2,000 publications from the ADB ’s current publications and archive. It will eventually include the complete back catalogue of ADB research—well over 5,000 publications—dating back to 1966, the year ADB was established.
Scholarly research is traditionally published in commercial academic journals that often require an expensive paid subscription to access it and strict terms of use to reproduce it. Open access is based on the principle that publically-funded research should be circulated as widely as possible so that the knowledge can be built upon, which may lead to innovative ways of thinking, according to the ADB .
The ADB joins other multilateral development banks, like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, as one of the first international financial institutions to embrace the principle of unfettered online access to research.
The new website conforms to standards already used by more than 3,000 open access repositories worldwide. These standards aim to facilitate the exchange of information between institutional and university repositories.
ADB, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration. Established in 1966, it is owned by 67 members – 48 from the region. In 2013, ADB assistance totaled $21.0 billion, including co-financing of $6.6 billion. Armenia joined ADB in 2005.-0-
