Trust wins support for open access initiative

The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation has provided a grant of £10,000 to support the charity's new open access online publishing strategy. 

Providing free access to reliable information

The charity has announced a major new initiative to offer free access to all of its research papers, books, teaching materials and more for families, education and health professionals and researchers.

Through this new initiative the charity aims to share its accurate, reliable, up-to-date and evidence-based information as widely as possible, to benefit the maximum number of beneficiaries worldwide. 

The charity plans to publish this online content under an open access licence that will permit individuals and organisations to freely copy and re-distribute the information subject to certain restrictions.

Converting the charity's world-leading catalogue of printed materials, books and journals will be a major undertaking, that will take significant time and funding.

First grant enables conversion work to start

The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation has provided a perfect start to the charity's new open access initiative by providing a grant of £10,000.

This donation will enable the charity to convert 110 articles it has published over the past two years - in its peer-reviewed scientific journal Down Syndrome Research and Practice and its periodical Down Syndrome News and Update - so they can be published online.

This work will be undertaken over the next 6-9 months and the articles will be made freely available online at the charity's Down Syndrome Online website on a rolling basis as they are converted.

Find out more

Find out more about the charity's new open access initiative...