Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) is one of the four programmes making up Research4Life (R4L) f  acilitated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. AGORA's goal is to provide free or low cost access (complementary to open access) to peer-reviewed journals (to date: 9.007) and e-books (22.654) in agriculture and related biological, environmental and social sciences. 

By bringing key scientific literature to students, researchers and scientists, AGORA portal has "become a crucial tool for some of the world’s poorest countries [as] access to information is key to develop agriculture and ensure food security" (R4L Press Release).

The most noticeable development in AGORA's usage context - during the last months - has been the upward growth of the number of institutions registered with AGORA/R4L programme. In particular, during the month of March 2017, 24 'AGORA requests' were processed. AGORA got 12 new institutions from the Group A countries (3 Viet Nam, 2 Nicaragua, and 1 from: Syria, Moldova, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Uganda, Afghanistan and Nepal) and 3 Group B (2 from Pakistan and 1 from Nigeria). Thus the total number of registered institutions at 31st of March was 3124 (2427 group A and 697 group B).

AGORA registrations and usage continue to increase with most users coming from Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and also in some eastern European countries. This positive impact is partly due to a number of capacity development activities provided by AGORA program managers who constantly bring AGORA training resources to eligible countries and users. Several capacity development activities were held in Namibia, Myanmar, Tanzania, Ghana,  Bolivia and are earmarked for Zimbabwe, Honduras, Nicaragua and Laos. 

Last but not least...

The AIMS team is happy to announce the upcoming webinar that will present AGORA's searching/browsing (by subjects/ thematic search, language, publishers) functionalities enhancing the visibility, accessibility and usability of research outputs in the agricultural and related domains.

Visit AIMS platform and stay tuned for date/time and registration link for the Webinar as soon as it is confirmed.

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In case you missed the past ASIRA online course webinars, you can still take the most out of them as the material  Webinars@ASIRA is available HERE (including Webinar@ASIRA: AGORA) 

View also:

• Focus on Agora: Following Growth Trends In Usage And Contents (AIMS)
• Access to research  in the developing world (Research4Life brochure)