KYUSHU UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE: MAKING HISTORY BY ACCESSING A CENTURY OF VITAL SCIENCE RESEARCH INFORMATION

 

Philadlephia, PA USA-London UK — 04/06/2005 — Today, Thomson Scientific, a business of The Thomson Corporation, announced that Kyushu University (Japan) and the University of Melbourne (Australia) are the first universities in Asia-Pacific to acquire a “Century of Science™”. The newly released Century of Science expands Web of Science® with the most important scientific bibliographic and cited reference data covering the period from 1900 to 1944.

Web of Science is the multidisciplinary bibliographic database, accessed via the ISI Web of Knowledge(SM) premier research platform that already offered an extensive collection of backfiles to 1945. With the Century of Science initiative, approximately 850,000 articles from more than 200 journals carefully selected from the published research of the first half of the 20th century were added.

Accessing the Past to Unlock the Future

As expressed by Frederic Lawrence Holmes of Yale University (Yale Bulletin and Calendar, v. 29, p. 34, 2000), “Knowledge is cumulative, and every groundbreaking discovery is determined to a large extent by the discoveries that came before it.” For example, Sir Ronald Fisher was an extraordinarily talented evolutionary biologist. His landmark paper, published in 1936 has been cited within published research more frequently in the past three years than at any time since its publication.

At the 9th International Conference on Scientometrics & Informatics held in August 2003, K.W. Boyak and A. Backer remarked that “the new ease of access to information has increased the proportion of older publications cited . . . suggesting that scientists are relying increasingly on computer searches whose scope now extends to the last 50 years or so.”

“As a forward-thinking information provider, we understand the importance of historical research information. With the Century of Science, Web of Science strengthens its position as the core navigational research source,” explained Adam Klein, vice president and general manager, Asia-Pacific, Thomson Scientific. “Kyushu University and the University of Melbourne have demonstrated their commitment to advancing research conducted at their institutions by investing in and building on the ground-breaking research of the past.”

“One of the major roles of Kyushu University is to make innovative research the highest priority,” said Dr. Setsuo Arikawa, vice president of the Department of Informatics, Kyushu University. “We are determined to strengthen research interaction and collaboration with other top research universities worldwide. The selection of Century of Science will further enable us to achieve this important goal.” In fact this renowned university ranks among the top 1% of institutions worldwide in 17 different scientific fields, according to Essential Science Indicators(SM).

“The University of Melbourne is one of Australia's leading research-intensive universities. Our key research goal is to strengthen our performance and reputation as a major international research university,” said Linda O'Brien, vice-principal (Information) of the University of Melbourne. “Adding the Century of Science to the complement of digital resources supporting research and scholarship will enhance our ability to reach this goal.” By ranking among the top 1% of institutions worldwide in 19 of the 22 scientific fields in Essential Science Indicators, it would appear that the university is well on its way to achieving its goal.

About Kyushu University

Kyushu University is one of the leading universities in Japan, which has 16,500 students enrolled, over 6000 researchers, 2,270 academic staff and 2,160 administrative staff in its 10 undergraduate schools, 14 graduate schools, 15 graduate faculties, 3 research institutes, one university hospital and other areas.

About the University of Melbourne

The University of Melbourne has established itself as one of the finest in Australia, if not the world. This has been achieved by progressive management, realistic visions for the future and strategic collaborations. The university’s mission is to be one of the finest universities in the world.

About Essential Science Indicators

Essential Science Indicators ranks the performance of scientists, institutions (universities, corporations, and government laboratories), and journals across 22 fields. As part of ISI Web of Knowledge(SM), Essential Science Indicators is an invaluable evaluation tool that allows for the systematic and objective analysis of international scientific literature as well as the research performance of companies, researchers, nations and journals.

Thomson Reuters (www.thomsonreuters.com), with 2005 revenues of approximately $8.5 billion, is a global leader in providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers. Thomson provides value-added information, software tools and applications to more than 20 million users in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, higher education, reference information, corporate e-learning and assessment, scientific research and healthcare. With operational headquarters in Stamford, Conn., Thomson has approximately 40,500 employees and provides services in approximately 130 countries. The Corporation's common shares are listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC).

Scientific is a business of Thomson Reuters. Its information solutions assist professionals at every stage of research and development—from discovery to analysis to product development and distribution. Thomson scientific information solutions can be found at www.scientific.thomson.com.