| CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS The Elsevier Grand Challenge:
Knowledge Enhancement in the Life Sciences THE ELSEVIER GRAND CHALLENGE Dear Mr Valluru,
The Elsevier Grand Challenge: Knowledge Enhancement in the Life Sciences is a contest created to improve the way scientific information is communicated and used. The contest invites members of the scientific community to describe and prototype a tool to improve the interpretation and identification of meaning in (online) journals and text databases relating to the life sciences. Specifically we are looking for new ways to: 1) improve the process/methods/results of creating, reviewing and editing scientific content 2) interpret, visualize or connect the knowledge more effectively, and/or 3) provide tools/ideas for measuring the impact of these improvements. While the traditional functions of peer-review, quality control, dissemination and archiving remain at the heart of scientific publishing, it is clear that new technologies are creating opportunities to facilitate interpretation of data. In initiating the Elsevier Grand Challenge, we hope to interact with the scientific community to discuss changing modes of publishing and knowledge sharing with innovative groups who are interested in changing the way science is published. The objective is to generate useful new ideas that could have a widespread impact on scientific publishing in general. Abstracts are now invited; see www.elseviergrandchallenge.com for the timeline, format, evaluation criteria, details on the data set, intellectual property aspects and submission link. Submissions will close on July 15th, 2008 . From the submitted abstracts, a number of semi-finalists will be selected by our multi-disciplinary Panel of Judges. These semi-finalists will be given the opportunity to work with a large collection of Elsevier life science content to develop and refine their concept. The semi-finalists will present their work to the Panel of Judges who will select a small group of finalists. Should they wish, semi-finalists and finalists can potentially explore the commercial development of their tool in collaboration with Elsevier. Finalists will be invited to present their vision papers in a public symposium at which the Panel of Judges will announce the winners. The first place winner will be awarded a cash prize of US$35,000 and the second place winner a cash prize of US$15,000. All finalists will receive free trial access to ScienceDirect and Scopus for a year. PANEL OF JUDGES • Eduard Hovy, (Chair) Director of the Natural Language Group, Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles • Bernard Aleva, Global Director of Publishing, Life Sciences, Elsevier, Amsterdam • David S. Rosenthal, Stanford University Libraries, Palo Alto • David Shotton, Image Bioinformatics Research Group, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford • Rafael Sidi, VP Product Development, ScienceDirect, Elsevier, New York • Susie Stephens, Principal Research Scientist, Eli Lilly, Boston • Alfonso Valencia, Protein Design Group, National Centre for Biotechnology,
CNB-CSIC, Madrid The contest is open to all participants who are eighteen (18) years of age or older. The Panel of Judges, employees of Reed Elsevier, its parent, subsidiary and affiliate companies, their advertising and promotional agencies, the immediate families of the foregoing and other persons residing in the household of such employees are not eligible to enter this contest. Any personal data of the participants collected by Elsevier will only be used for the performance of this contest, unless the participant explicitly agrees otherwise, for example to receive marketing and promotion information. The sponsor of this contest is Elsevier BV , Radarweg 29, 1043 NX Amsterdam , The Netherlands. No Elsevier subscription is necessary to enter or win the contest, and subscription to Elsevier products does not improve chances of winning. For more information on the Elsevier Grand Challenge, its conditions, or other aspects of this exciting venue, please contact: Noelle Gracy, Ph.D., Publisher Genetics and Cell Biology, Elsevier, Amsterdam:
n.gracy@elsevier.com, or Anita de Waard, Researcher Disruptive Technologies, Elsevier Labs, Amsterdam:
a.dewaard@elsevier.com | **Abstracts are due 15 JULY 2008** | | 
