Scientists for Health and Research for Development (SHARED)

SHARED (Scientist for Health and Research for Development) is a digital network based on validated information on ongoing medical and health related research, researchers and institutions.  SHARED started with two EC supported projects in which partners in Europe and Africa designed and developed the IT model for the exchange of information on health research in order to facilitate contact among scientists and funding organisations.  The initial project was followed up by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), in collaboration with important partners in Latin America and Caribbean, Asia and Africa. The SHARED network is organised decentrally and has an International Committee that is now composed mainly of former members of the Advisory Committee of the EC projects.

NWO/WOTRO has received a grant from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs/DGIS and is complementing the grant with resources from different sources to fund the SHARED Resources project, a comprehensive plan to roll out an operational system for Evidence Based Policy Making in developing countries, based on the original SHARED project concept. This grant is being managed by the actual SHARED Executive Secretariat which is hosted by NWO/WOTRO/IB.

Grant period: 01-Sept-2002 to 31-July-2005

Areas of implementation: Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America and Caribbean

Objectives

The general objectives of SHARED are:

• to make health related information available in the Web in order to promote cooperation and exchange of information and technology among health related organizations
• to support South-South cooperation and avoidance of duplication of efforts to solve common health problems;
• to work towards a North-South balanced relationship on research production and results dissemination;
• to promote the access to relevant sources of health peer-reviewed and gray literature in disadvantaged areas of the world;
• to promote the use of advanced Web based technology at local level adapted to the users needs

The objectives of the SHARED Resources project are:

• To increase the operational application of the SHARED system to make it used in at least four countries by Continent in order to create a Global Information System Network for scientists and decision-making professionals that will progressively incorporate and link scientists, institutions, organizations and publishers, in order to share, in a virtual community, the assembled human knowledge in a completely democratic way. (Shared knowledge is double knowledge) This participatory endeavor will, in first instance, concentrate its efforts on health, and related development issues. Its main aim is the coupling between knowledge generation and knowledge application and become the prime reference Web network for validated knowledge in health research in order to empower decision makers of disadvantaged areas of the world and also their critics, in the struggle for social equity and a just course in governance and program management;
• To enhance local capabilities and to assist evidence-based policy-making, researchers and program managers in developing countries, allowing dynamic contact with any distributed information source of interest by creating the Personal Supportals;
• To enable networks to operate regionally organized structures and different applications based on the same advanced core technology, with full compatibility but in relative independence and using regional mirror servers in order to organize a regionally-based international operational structure for the system;
• To reduce duplication of efforts on solving common problems by publicizing ongoing research and results via the Web

SHARED tools and technology

SHARED uses advanced Web technology that allows searching through decentralised databases using an automatic indexing process, the CollexisÒ FingerPrinting. The software enables rapid abstraction of concepts based on validated knowledge, creating a Conceptual Fingerprint (CFP) from any form of electronic text. Since a CFP represents all relevant content of such documents, it can be used for search comparing millions of CFPs or knowledge profiles. Accumulated CFPs from multiple publications or projects form dynamic interest, activity or publication profiles of scientists and experts. Because hundreds of millions of CFPs can be stored on one server and can be compared with each other in a matter of milliseconds, this technology empower people with expensive Internet connections to search across different validated information sources in a very fast way.

This matching process is independent of language and jargon and can be used in conjunction with any existing local platform or database. Therefore, any web based information system, any local database or document management system can be used. This allows a horizontal structure and also promotes the best use of the locally produced information, what is particularly important to improve the link with the policy making process at country level.

SHARED Knowledge is Double Knowledge

The main SHARED tool for information sharing on health sciences using different sources in different languages can be seen on the web site www.sharingpoint.net.

To enter individual information for projects, people and organisations that is not yet published on the Web, SHARED has made available a central database that can be accessed at www.shared-global.org.

A CD-ROM off-line version of the SHARED database allows entry and update of information off-line, with later transfer through the Internet.

Organizations using different data structures can index their information and make it available in the sharingpoint using a XML export tool.

For organisations that do not have yet a database and want to organise and share their information on the Network whilst hosting their own data, SHARED Network offers a very light database developed by The Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information BIREME/PAHO/WHO, that will automatically publish the information locally whilst sending it for indexation at the sharingpoint, making it also immediately available on the Internet.

All SHARED technology software, including those using Collexis technology, is available free of license fees for the public sector. Although every installation of a Collexis based software will require not only a license but also a Service Support Agreement that involves costs, as explained above, it is not necessary to install the FingerPrinting technology (Collexis) that is used in the sharingpoint site to join SHARED. The right to license Collexis-based technology and sell service support was given to the non-profit organisation IntellectuAll I2A (www.intellectuall.org), in which NWO is also member of the Direction Board, together with other important International partners.