Argentina ANLIS Expands Access to Public Health Research with Open-Source Knowledge Management System

Argentina’s National Administration of Laboratories and Institutes of Health “Dr. Carlos G. Malbrán” (ANLIS) inaugurated in October 2019 an innovative knowledge management system, the Sistema de Gestión del Conocimiento ANLIS or SGC-ANLIS, recognized as that year’s outstanding achievement in the Latin American region at the 2019 IANPHI Annual Meeting. 

SGC-ANLIS collects, stores and manages research data and information for all of ANLIS, including 13 national reference centers and institutes, and biocontainment operations covering critical public health functions such as referential diagnosis, epidemiological surveillance, basic and translational research, technology transference and innovation.

The Argentinian system was built upon the world’s first free open-source platform for Research Data and Information Management called DSpace-CRIS. DSpace-CRIS is used around the world by about 80 institutions, mostly universities. 

SGC-ANLIS provides universal, free, and timely access to research publications, open data, and scientific evidence. It facilitates dissemination to the scientific community, decision makers, academic institutions, and the general population, and encourages the appropriation of knowledge by the community.

The open-source platform also helps the Argentinian institute to identify knowledge gaps and develop a research agenda adapted to the needs of the population. It brings transparency to public investment in science and visibility to the results of publicly funded research. 

Implemented in nine months with a USD 10,000 budget and the support of the Argentinian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, SGC-ANLIS has received nearly 70,000 visits and more than 65,000 downloads of resources, with an average of 4,350 users a month.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, SGC-ANLIS has proven particularly useful for making relevant scientific evidence easily available, as well as for tracking and compiling news articles referencing the evidence in the media. The platform recorded an increase of up to 200% in the visits since the beginning of the pandemic, which is attributed to the institutional contribution on COVID-19-related research activities and the implementation of knowledge-management strategies.

SGC-ANLIS homepage

“ANLIS is the world’s first national public health institute to implement its knowledge management system using the open-source software DSpace-CRIS,” said Dr. Claudia Perandones, ANLIS scientific and technical director. 

“Despite the advancement of open-access and technological innovation in the region, little is known about the practices and processes for implementing open knowledge management systems in public laboratories,” she added. “By sharing this experience, we hope to contribute to accelerating similar processes in other public health institutions in the world.”

The institute continues to train its researchers to the platform, while leading an ongoing effort to digitize previously inaccessible historical records. So far 639 works edited between 1908 and 1962 by the National Department of Hygiene and the National Institute of Microbiology have been added to SGC-ANLIS. 

At the regional level the platform has allowed ANLIS to contribute to LA Referencia, a network of free and open-access repositories of scientific production in Latin America, with over two million articles, reports and theses.

If you are interested in implementing DSpace-CRIS for your national public health institute, please reach out to Dr. Claudia Perandones, ANLIS scientific and technical director (cperandones@anlis.gob.ar) and her team, Fernando Chinnici (fchinnici@anlis.gob.ar) and Sandra Raiher (sraiher@anlis.gob.ar).