Bill Gates backs ResearchGate, a social network for scientists - latimes.com

"ResearchGate, a professional network for scientists and researchers, is getting a powerful vote of confidence from Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates who has led a $35-million round of investment in the German venture. The company, which announced the investment on Tuesday, is in the vanguard of a growing movement to revolutionize how research is conducted and disseminated in the digital age. ResearchGate gives scientists and researchers a place to connect with one another and share findings with the goal of speeding the pace of scientific and technological advances. Like open-access journals, ResearchGate bypasses the centuries-old process of submitting research to a journal to be reviewed by peers.  Despite resistance from established journals and professional societies and skepticism from some corners of the scientific community, ResearchGate has grown in popularity over the last five years, and is nearing 3 million members, cofounder Ijad Madisch said.  He said he had always wanted Gates, who with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has focused on fighting infectious disease in the developing world, as an investor. The addition should help raise ResearchGate's profile ... 'The establishment is our biggest competitor,' said Madisch, a Harvard-trained physician born inGermany.  Scientists still rely on papers published in traditional journals to boost their resumes, compete for research grants and get tenure, and have been generally slow to join the 'open science' movement that sprang up with the Internet.  'For hundreds of years scientists have worked in silos,' Madisch said. 'We think that’s wrong and that’s what we want to change.'  On ResearchGate, scientists can collaborate on projects, follow others with similar interests and ask questions of their peers.  Madisch said science and society both benefit from switching to a model in which all peers review research after it's published rather than a select few peers reviewing research before it's published.  He cited the example of Orazio Romeo, an Italian scientist, who used ResearchGate to enlist colleagues to help with his research on pathogenic yeasts. Emmanuel Nnadi, a scientist from the University of Jos in Nigeria, collected blood samples and together they discovered the occurrence of a pathogenic yeast in Nigeria. They published their findings in a peer-reviewed journal.  'We all benefit if scientists are communicating better,' Madisch said.  ResearchGate is focusing on the next generation of scientists who may be more open to new ways of publishing research, he added.  The $35-million round led by Gates and Tenaya Capital also had participation from Dragoneer Investment Group, Thrive Capital and the company’s existing investors Benchmark and Founders Fund, both of which have partners who made early bets on Facebook.  ResearchGate plans to use some of the investment to build a business: making money from job listings and a marketplace for scientific products and services on the site. It has refused to say how much money it has raised in previous investment rounds.  It's not the most obvious market for a social network and not nearly as huge as that of Facebook or even LinkedIn. There are an estimated 8 million scientists in the world as well as millions more technicians and students, Madisch said. He is targeting them all ..."