Curated showcase of plain language summaries will help more people find and understand research about infectious diseases
A group of scholarly publishers is today launching a major new website to explain research about pandemics and infectious diseases to the public, policy makers, media, and other audiences within and beyond academia.
COVID and Beyond: Living with Pandemics has been sponsored by Kudos, Impact Science, the American Chemical Society, AIP Publishing, De Gruyter, Hindawi, SAGE Publishing, the University of Toronto Press, and Wolters Kluwer Health.
The showcase provides professionally-written plain-language summaries of research on topics ranging from prevention and diagnosis, to welfare and innovation.
The initiative is based on the ‘knowledge cooperative’ model developed by research communication companies Kudos and Impact Science. The model ensures more people find, understand and act on research into topics that affect the general public, or that require behavioural change. The cooperative approach means information from multiple publishers and universities can be gathered in one place, explained and presented in a consistent way, making it easier for non-specialists to explore and absorb.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has been a catalyst in many areas of research, from wearable technologies to identity politics,” says Charlie Rapple, co-founder of Kudos and the driving force behind the knowledge cooperatives. “Our success in tackling future pandemics depends on how well we learn from this one. We need to make sure that all those with a role to play – from policy makers to each of us as individuals – can understand and act on relevant research.”
