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ARKAT USA, Inc.
1. About
ARKAT USA, Inc. was established in the year 2000 through a personal donation and is duly registered as a charity. It is a not-for-profit entity designed to promote chemical research worldwide and hence benefit students, researchers, commercial or noncommercial enterprises, and humanity in general. The organization adheres to these aims firstly by publishing the totally free online journal, Arkivoc, that reports all aspects of organic chemical research and secondly by organizing the Florida Heterocyclic and Synthetic Conferences (FloHet Conference) which are held at Gainesville, Florida in March (alternate years).
2. Goals
ARKAT's primary goal is to publish Arkivoc, a free global online journal of organic chemistry, with a view to promoting the dissemination of the most recent discoveries and research results in this field. Arkivoc ("Archive for Organic Chemistry") is available online without access, downloading or page fees. The Control Board of Arkivoc chaired by Viktor Zhdankin includes a select group of Scientific Editors operating in three continents who decides publishing policy and maintain high standards. An Editorial Board of Referees consisting of over 600 Senior Chemists worldwide assist the Control Board by peer-reviewing manuscripts.
ARKAT provides accessibility free of charge for philanthropic reasons to address certain inequalities in the scientific marketplace. The escalating subscription costs of established scientific journals makes it increasingly difficult for researchers to access primary chemical literature. This problem of inaffordability affects even relatively well endowed universities in North America and Europe but is particularly acute in Eastern Europe and developing countries. The contraction of library budgets at universities has led to the disappearance (often by amalgamation) of many second and some first rank journals. The remaining first rank journals are constrained by cost and space limitations to accept and publish only the most original and high calibre research results. Consequently, a great deal of sound research work is probably wasted (or even duplicated) because it can only be published, if at all, in a journal of very limited distribution. This is a tragedy since discoveries which could potentially benefit mankind do not come to light. ARKAT aims to help break down the above barriers and redress the inequities.
Through free access to Arkivoc, ARKAT can:
- Empower scientists globally in disseminating their research results to the widest possible audience, free of financial, political or geographical encumbrances.
- Significantly increase interaction throughout the world-wide scientific community the open exchange of ideas and research which should accelerate medical and scientific advances.
- Assist towards minimizing duplication of scientific efforts.
- Provide an open forum in the form of thematic issues for the discussion of specific topics of current interest.
- Maintain the standards of published work in organic chemistry by rigorous refereeing and insistence on full experimental details and characterization of compounds.
- Provide a vehicle for the permanent archival recording of all sound organic chemical research (without space limitations).
- Promote the basic human rights to equality of opportunity and education.
- Honor and recognize the achievements of organic chemists worldwide through commemorative issues.
3. Progress to Date
Since the initial publication of Arkivoc in 2000, the journal has expanded from a total of 90 papers in two issues to over 100 papers per year. The journal appears with three types of format: Honorary Issues dedicated to honoring the achievements of an individual chemist or particular region of the world, and Thematic Issues; Reviews and Accounts Issues highlighting areas of current interest; General Issues open to any author.
The Honorary Issues, under the guidance of two members of the Control Board, are each organized by a Facilitator who monitors the submission of manuscripts, writes a tribute to the Honoree or a background to the Region, and helps to meet the completion date set by the Control Board. It should be emphasized that the fundamental policy of the journal and ARKAT-USA is the publication of sound scientific information with strict peer review completely free of charge to authors and readers. The latter aspect was designed specifically to benefit chemists in developing countries and hence promote the basic human rights of opportunity and education.
An automatic online submission system is employed by Arkivoc whereby authors under the guidance of "Instructions for Authors" (posted on the website) submit papers in a specified format to an electronic monitoring system that directs each paper through technical editing, referee assignment, scientific editing, and finally publishing without the intermediacy of emails.
4. Solicitation of Donations
ARKAT welcomes interest from those who would like to assist our aims by making donations or bequests.
5. Events
- A major activity of ARKAT USA, Inc. is the organization of the "FloHet" conferences were run on an annual basis 2000 - 2016. They are now run biennially. These highly successful conferences regularly attract over 200 delegates from academia and industry and provide a major source of revenue to help defray the publication costs of Arkivoc.
- The current format encompasses 10 plenary lectures given by chemists from academia and industry, all with internationally recognized research profiles, plus a series of "Invited Lectures" and "Contributed Lectures". A poster session involving approximately 50 posters takes place on the first two evenings of the conference with prizes for the best three posters. The meetings, which offer generous hospitality throughout, have proved to be extremely popular and therefore make an important contribution to the furtherance of science and the promotion of Arkivoc.
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