It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway!) that it is important for MND researchers to know what each other are up to – so they can build on results, develop fruitful collaborations and avoid duplication of effort. The MND Association joining the UK PubMed Central (UK PMC) Funders Group is a new way of encouraging researchers to share more results and allow them to move further and faster towards a world free of MND.
The database offers an opportunity for anyone to track what we are funding, who we are funding and which research results were generated as a direct result of our funding. You can also find out which other members of the Funders Group are also funding MND research. These opportunities are in addition to the searchable list of ‘research papers’ that is UK PMC’s key function.
One way that researchers share their results with each other is by the publication of ‘research papers’. These are detailed, technical reports of what experiments were done, how they did them, what the results were and what the authors feel the results mean for their area of research. They are written in quite a structured way, that their peers will be very familiar with.
Where once these research papers were circulated exclusively in hard copy journals and catalogued on library microfiches (remember them?!) increasingly research papers are published electronically and stored and catalogued in online databases. Many of these databases only offer a summary of the research report to the general public; and a library subscription or a login are required to get the full research paper.
UK PubMed Central aspires to make as many papers as possible available in full, increasing the ease of access for researchers and allowing anyone else to read them too. We will be working with our grantees to contribute to this ambition. It’s all part of our drive to ensure that the best possible environment exists for MND research to prosper!
More information on the Association joining UK PMC is available in our press release
