The two organizations have agreed to collaborate on a series of new initiatives that will capitalize on the Academy's strength in fostering novel and cutting-edge scientific gatherings and Nature's strengths in disseminating high-quality scientific information to a worldwide community of scientists. The common goal of the collaboration is to enhance the capacity of scientists from around the world to share new knowledge.
Both organizations share common characteristics: commitment to a multidisciplinary focus and serving global communities. Nature serves subscribers in over 100 countries; the Academy has members in 150 nations. Among the initiatives planned are development and co-sponsorship of meetings, seminars, and symposia in New York and beyond on the most important, hottest topics in science today. For example, subjects under discussion for possible investigation include aging-related neurodegenerative diseases, RNAi, emerging infectious diseases, nanotechnology, and many more.
The Academy/Nature alliance will also focus on ways to utilize print, electronic, and other novel dissemination methods to transmit the information, ideas, and conclusions from those gatherings to scientists everywhere. One model for such an effort are the electronic briefings currently being developed on the Academy's website, www.nyas.org, that feature in-depth coverage of conferences and meetings, including summary reports, transcripts, audio/video coverage, slides, and additional resources.
"International and multidisciplinary 'cross-pollination' are essential drivers of the engines of scientific, technological, and medical progress," said Ellis Rubinstein, who recently celebrated his one-year anniversary as the Academy's Chief Executive Officer. "This collaboration is a major milestone in the Academy's broad-based program to reinvigorate its services to our members, the scientific community, and society at large."
Mr. Rubinstein noted that when Nature and the Academy started looking at what each was doing, "it was immediately obvious that the two organizations complemented each other and that a matching of our strengths would be good for both of us, and for science as a whole."
Annette Thomas, CEO of the Nature Publishing Group, sees common ground between the two organizations.
"Nature and the Academy share similar goals," she said. "We both strive to serve the scientific community and to foster communications among scientists and the general public."
Immediate Benefits
Nature subscribers and Academy members will garner some immediate benefits, including special prices for Academy membership and Nature subscriptions and access to content on each organization's web sites. Of particular interest to the thousands of members of the Academy's new Science Alliance for Graduate Students and Postdocs will be the opportunity to peruse career information on the Naturejobs web site and even post resumes, cover letters, and job applications there.
The NPG/Academy collaboration is the latest in a series of initiatives both organizations are developing to expand services to members and the scientific community. For example, the Science Alliance for students, established in the spring, has already brought in nearly 5,000 young members to the Academy as part of a cooperative arrangement with 14 of the leading higher education institutions in the greater New York/New Jersey area. At Nature, its groundbreaking Signaling Gateway on the nature.com web site, in partnership with the Alliance for Cellular Signaling, is transforming the presentation and accessibility of crucial data in this fast-moving field.
Founded in 1817, the New York Academy of Sciences is an international nonprofit organization of more than 23,000 members worldwide serving science, technology, and society.
NPG, owner of Nature and more than 50 research and review journals, is the world's leading scientific publisher. Nature, which is published weekly, was founded in 1869.