The Hindu Business Line : Thomson Scientific starts centre in Chennai

Thomson Scientific culls information from over 10,000 science journals and details of patents granted from over 45 patent offices across the world, and offers them online for R&D by academics and companies.

The editorial operations for creating this content will be concentrated in Chennai and Hyderabad.

This would be its third centre in India after the first one in Bangalore started in 1994 and Hyderabad in 2006.

Announcing the launch of the Chennai Centre, here today, Mr Stephen P. Quinn, Senior Vice-President, Editorial Operations, said that Chennai and Hyderabad centres are to be expanded in the coming weeks. Starting with a workforce of about 150 they expect to grow to 500 workers.

By 2009, Thomson Scientific expects to recruit over a 1,000 workers qualified in a range of disciplines, particularly those with doctorate and post-graduate degrees in sciences.

They would provide the editorial content for Thomson Scientific's products such as the Derwent Innovations index, the database of patents, and the Web of Science and Web of Knowledge, the database of a wide discipline of scientific literature.

Thomson Scientific's database goes back over 100 years, or "a century of science", Mr Quinn said.

Information from top journals such as Science and Nature are updated almost simultaneously as they are available in print, and at most within five days of publishing for other journals, he said.

More data

The expansion in India means the company can expand its offering by about 20 per cent - offering more data from more journals to the scientific community.

Typically, the company provides an abstract of the articles in scientific journals with detailed references. On patent data, an 800-page document crammed with legal jargon would be crystallised to provide the essence of the information that would be needed to a researcher.

The Thomson Corporation, headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, is a global leader in providing electronic workflow solutions to business and professional customers. It provides value-added information, software tools and applications to professionals in law, tax, accounting, financial services, scientific research and healthcare. Its shares are listed on the New York and Toronto Stock Exchanges.

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