Doha, Qatar -- December 15, 2011 -- A major reflection of Qatar's investment in and commitment to research took concrete form today when the Qatar Foundation's QScience.com, the digital publishing portal for research journals, hosted its Inaugural International Advisory Board meeting. Officially introduced at a ceremony held at the Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum in 2010, QScience.com is now serving as an outlet for peer-reviewed research papers that are published with Open Access and are freely available to all.
An internationally recognized advisory board convened at Education City today to help chart QScience.com's course to become a top quality scientific publisher; in support of the research activities of the Qatar Foundation, Qatar University and other national research stakeholders, the region and the world while adopting the latest technology and business models in support of global scientific communication.
In an inspiring speech to the Advisory Board, David Lipman Director of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Institutes of Health and PubMed said, "QScience.com will be the new innovative force in open access publishing."
Sir Richard Roberts who was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine emphasized the importance of worldwide knowledge dissemination through innovative publishing strategies and models. Sir Richard said today, "QScience.com is another demonstration of the openness of Qatar Society. Let's hope that QScience.com is as successful as Al Jazeera."
The President of Qatar Foundation, Dr Fathy Saoud said today: "The successful launch of QScience.com is a major milestone in Qatar Foundation's and BQFJ's mission to reflect the burgeoning research environment of Qatar to the wider world through a state-of-the-art publishing enterprise that can attract the high quality research papers from Qatar centers of excellence in Qatar Foundation, Qatar University, Hamad Medical Corporation and other stakeholders in Qatar."
In keeping with their role as a fully open access publisher, QScience.com is committed to the widest possible dissemination of research outputs. QScience.com has come a long way in a year and with many new projects underway it will accelerate that progress. The President of Qatar University, Dr Sheikha Al Misnad stated, "The key to our mission is to establish QScience.com as a leading journals platform for top quality research from Qatar, the region and the world."
Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals
Inaugural Meeting of the International Advisory Board
LIST OF ATTENDEES
Members of the International Advisory Board (in alphabetic order)
Chair: Richard Charkin, Bloomsbury Publishing
Alok Adoleya, TERI - The Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi, India
Hessa Al Jaber, Supreme Council for Information and Communication, Qatar
Sheikha Abdulla Al-Misnad, Qatar University
Abdul Sattar al Taie, Qatar National Research Fund
Ilker Baybars, Carnegie Mellon University Qatar
Alexandra Cousteau, Blue Legacy, Washington DC
Ahmed Elmargarmid, Qatar Computing Research Centre
Abdelali Haoudi, Qatar Foundation
Mehran Kamrava, Georgetown University School of Foreign Services
Vijay Kumar, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
Rabi Mohtar, Qatar Energy and Environment Research Institute
Frances Pinter, Bloomsbury Publishing
Mohammad Fathy Saoud, Qatar Foundation
Javaid Sheikh, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar
Allyson Vanstone, Virgina Commonwealth University School of the Arts
Mark Weichold, Texas A&M University at Qatar
Magdi Yacoub, Imperial College, London
Invited Guest
Amer al Saadi, Qatar Foundation
David Lipman, NIH, USA
Mustafa Mustafa, Qatar Foundation
Sir Richard Roberts, NEB,
QScience/Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Staff
Emily Alp
Paul Coyne
Shania Khan
Arend Kuester
Christopher Leonard
Saffiyah al Nuaimi
- Ends -
About Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals (BQFJ)
Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals (BQFJ), founded in 2009 as a unique collaboration between Qatar Foundation and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, focuses on fostering scholarly and research communication. BQFJ publishes a range of peer reviewed, high-quality, open access journals, databases and repositories which adhere to the highest scholarly publishing standards. www.QScience.com
About Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc is one of the world's leading independent publishers. BQFJ is its second partnership with Qatar Foundation, the first Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing whose book publishing program was launched in April. www.bloomsbury.com
For more information, please contact:
Arend Küster
Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals (BQFJ)
Tel: +974 (445) 42439
akuster@qf.org.qa
www.QScience.com
© Press Release 2011
