ARDI is the Access to Research for Development and Innovation program. ARDI is a partnership between the World Intellectual Property Organization

World Intellectual Property Organization

The World Intellectual Property Organization is one of the 17 specialized agencies of the United Nations. WIPO was created in 1967 "to encourage creative activity, to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world"....

 and major scientific and technical publishers. ARDI provides access to over 200 online journals for patent offices and academic and research institutions in 107 developing and least developed countries as of November 2011. The stated objective of ARDI is to "promote the integration of developing countries into the global knowledge economy, allowing them to more fully realize their creative potential."

ARDI is part of Research4Life, the collective name for four programs - HINARI

HINARI

HINARI is the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative. It was set up by the World Health Organization and major publishers to enable developing countries to access collections of biomedical and health literature. There are over 7000 journal titles available to health institutions in 109...

 (focusing on health), AGORA

AGORA

AGORA is the acronym for the Access to Global Online Research on Agriculture program. It was started by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations with a number of publishing partners to provide developing countries access to scientific information on food, agriculture,...

 (focusing on agriculture), OARE

Oare

There are at least four villages called Oare in England:*Oare, Berkshire, near Newbury*Oare Marshes, Kent, internationally important nature reserve near Faversham*Oare, Kent, near Faversham*Oare, Somerset, near Minehead*Oare, Wiltshire, near Marlborough...

(focusing on environment), and ARDI (focusing on applied science and technology). Research4Life provides developing countries with free or low cost access to academic and professional peer-reviewed content online.

History

ARDI was launched by the World Intellectual Property Organization in July 2009 in cooperation with 12 major publishers - American Association for the Advancement of Science; American Institute of Physics; Elsevier; Institute of Physics; John Wiley & Sons; Oxford University Press; National Academy of Sciences; Nature Publishing Group; Royal Society of Chemistry; Sage Publications; Springer Science+Business Media; and Taylor & Francis.

Eligibility

Institutions eligible to participate in ARDI are: patent offices, academic institutions, and research institutions. All members of a registered institution (researchers, teaching and administrative staff, students) and its on-site visitors are eligible to use the resources to which access is provided through ARDI.