Russian Foundation of Basic Research Chooses Elsevier’s Scopus to Improve Russia’s Research Ranking Position

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced it has reached an agreement with the Russian Foundation of Basic Research (RFBR) to provide its funding experts with access to Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Furthermore, an additional 50 RFBR research institutes will receive access to ScienceDirect, Elsevier's full-text platform for research literature.

With a total of 200 RFBR research institutes now having access to ScienceDirect and funding experts having access to Scopus, this one-year license agreement aims to increase the visibility and quality of Russian scientific research. This should further improve Russia's research ranking position and support a more qualified and efficient grant assigning program.

Vladimir Eliseev, RFBR's Director, said, "Cooperation with Elsevier to provide  access to multi-disciplinary abstract and citation database Scopus empowers the Foundation to track citations of scientific articles published with RFBR funds. The obtained data will be an objective indicator of the achievements of Russian scientists; and in the long term can be used in analytical work to identify further areas for funding."

Igor Osipov, PhD, Elsevier Regional Director for Russia and Belarus added, "RFBR is the flagship scientific foundation in Russia and we are honored to continue our cooperation with this next step. ScienceDirect and Scopus offer quality information and guidance to RFBR's efforts to boost cutting edge fundamental research and will help benchmark Russia's scientific output against international results."

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About the Russian Foundation for Basic Research
The Russian Foundation for Basic Research is a self-governing foundation existing in the form of a federal institution run under the jurisdiction of the government of the Russian Federation. Its main goal is to provide support and assistance to research work in all areas of fundamental science on a competitive basis and which is called upon to build new relationships between scientists and the state. The foundation distributes federal funding to the most advanced research projects originating both from Russian universities as well as from institutions of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The RFBR is part of G8 scientific foundations family and enjoys close cooperation ties with all key funding bodies across the globe: from North America to EU, China and Japan. Financing refereed projects across disciplines, key attention is given to physics, technology and nano-technology, medicine, various interdisciplinary studies, which Russian government identified as priority in R&D development until 2020.

About ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect is home to almost one-quarter of the world's peer-reviewed full-text scientific, technical and medical content. Over 15 million researchers, health care professionals, teachers, students and information professionals around the globe rely on ScienceDirect as a trusted source of nearly 2,200 journals, almost 900 serials and 25,000 book titles. ScienceDirect supports research and education with interactive elements in articles such as audio, video, graphs, tables and images, and offers tools so users can easily set alerts. Content on ScienceDirect also features embedded links to external datasets, including earth and environmental science data from PANGAEA, abstract and indexing data from Scopus and chemical reactions data from Reaxys. With almost 12 million content pieces available—including pre-publication release of articles and open access content from Elsevier journals—ScienceDirect is a premier platform for discovering the world of research.

About Scopus
Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize scholarly research. Its vast database contains abstracts and references from nearly 21,000 titles from 5,000 publishers worldwide, ensuring broad interdisciplinary coverage in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences and Arts & Humanities. Scopus was designed and developed with input from researchers and librarians internationally; and features direct links to subscribed full-text articles, other library resources and interoperability with applications such as reference management software.

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, deliver better care, and sometimes make groundbreaking discoveries that advance the boundaries of knowledge and human progress. Elsevier provides web-based, digital solutions — among them ScienceDirect, Scopus, Elsevier Research Intelligence, and ClinicalKey — and publishes nearly 2,200 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and over 25,000 book titles, including a number of iconic reference works.

The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world leading provider of professional information solutions in the Science, Medical, Legal and Risk and Business sectors, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

Media contact
Galina Yakshonak
Elsevier, Russia
+7 985 72 779 67
g.yakshonak@elsevier.com