SciDev.Net

The global community must not forget countries suffering scientific stagnation, says TWAS executive director, Mohamed H. A. Hassan.

High-quality regional journals are essential for building the scientific strengths of the developing world, says Wieland Gevers.

Measures should be put in place to ensure that innovative scientific information is available to Chinese researchers, says Lan Xue.

Researchers' preference for publishing in globally recognised journals is skewing the direction of scientific inquiry away from local research, writes Priya Shetty.

For its own international credibility, Indian science must be seen to deal with scientific misconduct, says N. Raghuram.

An initiative to bring biomedical research journals free to the developing world is faltering, protest a group of academics in Lima.

Talli Nauman argues that environmental journalists must be more than simple informers to provide better coverage of development issues.

All scientists — rich or poor — should have free and open access to published data; any attempt to restrict such access is unacceptable, argues Donat Agosti.

A study of scientific research in the Muslim world shows that it lags far behind the rest of the world, but there are encouraging signs of improvement, says Athar Osama

Pervez Hoodbhoy argues that Pakistan cannot develop scientifically by focusing solely on producing PhDs and research papers.

Governments need to actively encourage the sharing of scientific knowledge and expertise if the open access movement is to revolutionise the way science works, says Arthur Carty.

Phyllis Freeman and Anthony Robbins introduce AuthorAID, a mentoring initiative proposed to help close the 'publishing gap' between researchers in rich and poor nations.

Ranjit Manchanda, Rajesh Varma, Ike Anya and Joseph Ting respond to recent research that revealed that leading medical journals lack input from authors and editors in developing countries.

Paul M. Coplan and colleagues suggest various measures to help developing nations overcome regulatory hurdles to the widespread use of microbicides.

PLoS Biology argues that the publication fees that it and other open-access journals charge are not putting an unfair burden on authors.

The US Treasury's decision to lift a ban preventing journals from publishing peer-reviewed papers by authors from sanctioned countries is a welcome step, says an editorial in Science.

Subbiah Arunachalam argues that the best way to make scientific research more available worldwide is to encourage scientists to self-archive their research.

Barbara Aronson argues that HINARI — a programme to give developing countries access to science journals — is reducing the intellectual isolation of researchers in the world's poorest nations.

Brian Crawford argues that there is little reason to overturn the current 'reader pays' publishing system – a system that has been refined over decades and works to the mutual benefit of various stakeholders.

Three Brazilian researchers argue that competition for scarce resources is creating unreasonable pressure to publish often and in foreign journals.