Open access publications and research integrity will top the agenda when the Global Research Council holds its second summit meeting starting Monday in Berlin.

TWAS is teaming with the Global Virus Network to explore new initiatives that could help the developing world address the threat of deadly viruses.

How can scientists in the world of academia create a more peaceful, prosperous and equal world? Ivo Šlaus, a physicist and president of the World Academy of Art & Science (WAAS), raised these questions Monday afternoon at the Adriatico Guesthouse in Grignano, arguing that it's essential that academics of all stripes engage with the political realities of the world.

A new global partnership programme backed by a trio of US government agencies is finding early success with a model that provides funding to researchers in developing nations who are working directly with US scientists.

Academies of medicine across the world need to cooperate to enhance developing countries' ability to conduct, share and use their research, said Dr. Jo Ivey Boufford, co-chair of the InterAcademy Medical Panel (IAMP), at an event in Grignano, Italy.

The International Year of Crystallography in 2014 will bring global attention to a field that is little-known, but which can be a major force for advancing knowledge and economic growth in the developing world. An article in the latest TWAS Newsletter explores the importance of the field.

John Fredy Barrera Ramirez, an optical physicist working on the use of light to encrypt data, has been a professor at the Physics Institute at Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia, since June 2006. But when TWAS gave him the chance to conduct cutting-edge research in Argentina, he was eager for the opportunity.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, poor food storage and hygiene practices are common enough that contaminated or spoiled food is sold throughout the country. So Akier Assanta Maf, a food safety specialist from Canada, went to the Congo as a TWAS visiting scientist to help.

TWAS expresses its condolences and sorrow for the sudden and unexpected death Friday of journalist David Dickson, who founded SciDev.Net, the influential science development news website, in 2001.

The world's poorest countries and their allies should focus on Internet and communications technology to build momentum in science and engineering, TWAS Executive Director Romain Murenzi said at a conference in Beijing.