Aims of The Immunity Resource Foundation
The Immunity Resource Foundation (IRF) will provide a digitised information base offering:
- an educational facility and internet database of 120,000 documents comprising the 20 years of changing scientific evidence surrounding HIV/AIDS and other health, nutrition and medical issues.
- A unique and extensive record of challenges to current thinking in medical and public health fields, and the debates surrounding them.
- regularly collated website updates from the frontiers of present research on medical and public health issues and their financial and political contexts.
- search and viewing facilities of Meditel’s unparalleled library of 200 hours of television
- documentaries, original footage and video material.
- a broadband video channel transmitting Meditel’s television archive with issue updates.
- the complete library of Continuum magazine editions which include articles of major scientific and academic interest, mostly rejected by mainstream journals.
Also contains collected publications, proofing copies and editorial correspondence. - educational materials including interactive CD/DVD ROM, seminars, lectures and legal advice on health and medical issues.
THE RESOURCE
Through twenty years of investigative television programmes, Meditel Productions in London has collected a unique archive – the Meditel Archive – of the science and law surrounding AIDS and injury from prescribed drugs. The resource of 120,000 of Meditel’s research documents plus the 8 year archive of specialist magazine Continuum, plus 20 Meditel videos, and video footage, demonstrates in incomparable detail, debates that have taken place behind the closed doors of a scientific community. The Meditel and Continuum archives are on permanent loan to IRF.
THE CLIENT BASE
Every week IRF receives requests for specialist information, current and historical, on issues in science and medicine addressed in the work of Meditel and Continuum. An internet archive combined with regularly updated educational CD/DVD ROMs will give access to this record of the process of change and debate in science, providing an interactive structure by which academics, patients, writers and others can draw on original data to further their work in these fields. We expect this number of requests to grow as awareness of the new digitised database develops. This will make the database website attractive to advertisers and sponsors interested to associate themselves with this content-driven resource.
RAISING REVENUE
IRF will raise revenue by:
1. accepting fees for archive access and searches from:
- scientists
- universities (media courses, philosophy of science, politics, history,
- business studies etc.)
- artists
- health researchers
- legal and human rights organisations
- market investors
- journalists
2. specific fundraising activities which may include retaining a professional fundraiser.
3. educational programmes of seminars and lectures.
FUNDING
IRF has a 5 year plan with a detailed four-phase budget. Year 1 (Phase l & ll):
Fundraising/archive cataloguing/legal consultancy Year 2 (Phase lll):
Equipment – PC’s/scanners/software/archiving/digitising team/website/DVD Years 3-5 (Phase lV):
Website & DVD update/seminars/IRF broadband channel transmission of Meditel’s television archive.