Elsevier Launches Competition for the Scientific Community in Knowledge Enhancement in the Life Sciences

Amsterdam, June 2008 - Elsevier, a leading global healthcare and scientific publisher, announced today that it has launched a new competition inviting the scientific community to prototype tools to innovate how Life Sciences information is used in online text databases. “ The Elsevier Grand Challenge: Knowledge Enhancement in the Life Sciences” is designed to generate useful new ideas that will contribute to improving the productivity of life science researchers.

The deadline for submitting abstracts for The Elsevier Grand Challenge is July 15th. Winning ideas will improve the process of creating, reviewing and editing scientific content; interpreting or connecting the knowledge more effectively, or measuring the impact of these improvements. Semi-finalists will be chosen in the first week of August by a distinguished interdisciplinary panel of judges and given the opportunity to work with a large collection of Elsevier life science content to further develop and refine their concepts.

Finalists will be announced at the end of the year after a second round of judging and invited to present vision papers to the judging panel and the public in February 2009. The first place winner will be awarded a cash prize of $35,000 while the second place innovator will receive a $15,000 prize. As an additional benefit, finalists will enjoy free access to ScienceDirect and Scopus; moreover, all contestants may be offered the opportunity to develop their tools in collaboration with Elsevier.

“The Grand Challenge provides an innovative way to spur discussion on evolving text-centred modes of research. I’m excited to serve as a panel judge, and to experience the creativity of groups interested in changing the way in which science is published” remarked Eduard Hovy, Chair Panel of Judges and Director of the Natural Language Group, Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

“The Grand Challenge is about enabling scientists to interpret research more efficiently and effectively by recognizing relationships and patterns more rapidly than is currently possible. Eventually, we hope to accelerate the course of science”, says Bernard Aleva, Elsevier’s Global Director of Publishing, Life Sciences, “One of the best aspects of the Elsevier Grand Challenge is the chance to collaborate very closely with the scientific community to move a little bit closer to this goal.”