[Fate of the results of research projects]

Once completed, the results of a research project must be made known to the scientific community. This is usually achieved by presentations at scientific meetings or by publishing the results in a journal of the specialty. The purpose is not only to make public these findings, but that they can be used to solve problems, immediately or in the long-term, or to serve as the basis for future research. However, several studies have found that less than 50% of the communications to congresses are published. One of the main reasons is that publications in high impact journals can not be easily attained since most of them are not of open access. For this reason, it is convenient to resort to free-access journals listed in prestigious international indexes. The Council for Scientific Development at the University of Zulia financially supports a number of scientific journals that meet these criteria. If the research was the result of a PhD, Master or Specialty thesis or the project for a promotion in an academic institution, the end result should be also their publication; but commonly, these are even less published than communications to scientific meetings. At the University of Zulia, Serbiluz has made a major effort to collect all this material and make it available to serve the scientific community. It is necessary to mention that the institution that supports financially a research project has the right to demand its publication, to benefit the greatest number of people and as a mean to compensate the economic support with scientific knowledge.