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R4D (Research for Development)

Submitted by martin.parr on Wed, 26/01/2011 - 17:08


Description

R4D (Research for Development) is the portal to DFID research. It includes a free access, online, searchable database containing information about research programmes supported by DFID. There are over 30,000 project and document records covering both current research and activities dating back to the mid-1990s in the fields of Rural Livelihoods, Health, Social Sciences, Education, and Infrastructure and Urban Development.  R4D also includes news and case studies and a wide-ranging resource of related information. R4D is produced for DFID by the CIMRC consortium led by CABI, with CommsConsult, Euforic Services and IFPRI.
 Enabler
Department for International Development, UK (DFID)
Website: 
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/R4D
Contact email: 
m.parr@cabi.org
Name of contact person: 
Martin Parr
Pathway(s) enabled
How the pathway is enabled: 

R4D provides a freely accessible, searchable, online collection of records of DFID-funded research as well as a wide range of other research-related resources. Its aim is to make the outputs of all DFID-funded research openly available to the world.

Making a website's content visible on the Web
How the pathway is enabled: 

R4D ensures that all its content is visible through the major search engines, by registering and maintaining regularly updated sitemaps for all of its content types. In addition it pays special attention to making parts of its content available to specialist search engines, repositories and directories where it might be accessed by particular types of user (e.g. journalists - news content is indexed by Google news), and including those interested in research in a particular discipline (e.g. the environmental research data subsets are available in the Living with Environmental Change (LWEC) website (http://www.lwec.org.uk/). Output metadata is also available in OAI-PMH format to encourage wider use and re-use of the material.

How the pathway is enabled: 

R4D communicates regular updates and news using techniques such as e-newsletters, e-mail alerts and RSS feeds. Around 10,000 subscribers make use of the main 100 thematic feeds.