z-logo
News

Beta-release of Zendy offering academics free and easy access to over 100 million publications

calendarOct 11, 2018 |clock5 Mins Read

Frankfurt Book Fair – FRANKFURT, Germany, 11th October 2018 – Zendy has been created with the aim to radically facilitate access to academic literature; it sees the light today in the form of a beta release. Zendy has been developed by Knowledge E in a growing collaboration with academic researchers, students, institutions and publishers.

“By addressing the key challenges that we face through traditional ways of accessing academic literature, Zendy serves to provide peace of mind, a zen day, for all researchers and students”, says Kamran Kardan, CEO at Knowledge E.

Many academics feel the opposite of zen on most days – overwhelmed by the sheer availability of knowledge hidden in not-so-easily-accessible nooks and crannies of the vast body of academic publishing output, unable to retrieve just that one piece of available quality research that solves a problem, enables a discovery, enlightens a hungry mind, broadens horizons, opens new doors and – a bit further down the line – changes the world for the better. Pitfalls are plenty, many of which revolve around discoverability, reliability and trustworthiness of sources.

Martin Jagerhorn, Chief Innovation Officer at Knowledge E, outlines the objectives of Zendy in more detail. “We have set out to ensure that Zendy provides an outstanding user experience. Typically, there is a complex path towards the full text – going across different sites and several clicks before you can finally download the full-text article. Our ambition is to ensure that the full-text material can be accessed directly for all articles on Zendy. Currently, we have only achieved this for a small fraction of the publication records.”

Dr. Tanguy Pierog, who is a Particle Physics Researcher at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and a part of the beta users providing input to the development process, explains that: “You feel that this new service has been designed in close collaboration with the research community. Zendy is already incredibly intuitive and easy to use, and will save us valuable time for accessing relevant literature and let us focus more on the actual research.”

Furthermore, the content will be reviewed based on a set of quality criteria to ensure that it is reliable and of high quality, in particular, making sure that there will be no content from any predatory publishers. This is a major undertaking, which will take time before it becomes available on Zendy, but it will be crucial for researchers and students to fully trust the content and be able to progress their work more effectively.

The third pillar of Zendy, next to an outstanding user experience and high-quality content, is to offer an affordable access to paid content. While the Open Access material will stay free for everyone on Zendy, the ambition is to enable anyone to access paid content for a modest subscription fee through Zendy Premium. Martin adds: “We invite all publishers to join the collaboration to support the vision for Zendy as we believe this will be important to academics globally, but particularly in developing countries, where universities commonly cannot afford to subscribe to many of the key databases required for quality research and studies. Zendy will in this way facilitate the democratization of access to knowledge, which we know is key to learning”.

Even without the paid content, Zendy realizes the dormant power in openly accessible research that might not quite have made its way to end users in all its vastness until now. Already containing more than 100 million publications from over 20,000 peer-reviewed journals, Zendy channels this impressive quantity of data to anyone and anywhere, and to be consumed online or be downloaded.

About Knowledge E

Established in 2012, Knowledge E’s name was fast to become synonymous with collaboration, professionalism and innovation. Head-quartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and supported by a team of 30 highly engaged professionals, Knowledge E works passionately with all types of organisations and government entities within the research and education sector to support their continued innovation and development by providing them with leading expertise, information resources and software solutions. Knowledge E’s three core offerings are the 3D’s; ‘Discover’, ‘Develop’ and ‘Disseminate’. ‘Discover’ through the KnE Digital Library Solutions for research literature discovery, ‘Develop’ through the KnE Learning Services, supporting capacity building and skills development within academia and ‘Disseminate’ through the KnE Publishing Services and the platform for Open Access publishing and indexing of regional journals and conference proceedings. www.knowledgee.com

You might also like
We Are Exhibiting UKSG 2025 Annual Conference & Exhibition in Brighton!
Mar 19, 20253 Mins ReadNews

We Are Exhibiting UKSG 2025 Annual Conference & Exhibition in Brighton!

We're thrilled to announce that we will be exhibiting at the 48th UKSG Conference from March 31 to April 2, 2025, in Brighton, UK. Visit us at booth #79 to experience: Live Demonstrations: See how Zendy’s AI-powered tools, like ZAIA and AI Summarisation, can streamline your research with reference-backed answers to all your research questions and concise summaries of complex academic papers Personalised Consultations: Meet our team to discuss how Zendy can support your library’s digital transformation. Interactive Sessions: Learn about our affordable subscription models and global accessibility initiatives. Meet Kamran Kardan, Sara Crowley Vigneau and Lisette van Kessel to learn how Zendy is making knowledge more accessible and affordable for researchers, students, and professionals worldwide. Don't miss this opportunity to explore the future of scholarly communication. To schedule a meeting with our team, please email us at info@zendy.io About UKSG Annual Conference: The UKSG Conference is a premier event in scholarly communications, attracting global delegates including librarians, publishers, researchers, and students. It offers an excellent platform for networking and exploring the latest trends in the research and publishing community. To learn more visit: https://www.uksg.org/events/conference25/ .wp-block-image img { max-width: 50% !important; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; }

We are Attending the 20th Annual Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) Conference
Mar 19, 20253 Mins ReadNews

We are Attending the 20th Annual Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) Conference

We’re excited to announce that we will be attending the 20th Annual Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) Conference from March 23–26, 2025, in Austin, Texas! This milestone event brings together professionals in e-resources, digital services, and the library industry to share insights, foster innovation, and build connections. Let’s Connect! If you’re attending ER&L 2025 or will be in Austin during the event, set up and schedule a meeting with our Co-founder Kamran Kardan. Please email us at info@zendy.io  to schedule a time to discuss ZAIA’s vision for the future of AI in research and digital innovation. About ER&L 2025 The ER&L Conference is a community-driven event celebrating its 20th year of bringing together professionals passionate about electronic resources and digital services. With a peer-reviewed program shaped by industry experts, it’s the perfect space to explore trends, technologies, and solutions shaping the future of libraries. Location: Austin, USADates: March 23–26, 2025 Join us as we celebrate two decades of innovation in e-resources management! We look forward to seeing you there! To learn more visit – https://electroniclibrarian.org .wp-block-image img { max-width: 85% !important; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; }

Announcing our RAG-Based Revenue-Sharing Model for Academic Publishers
Mar 14, 20257 Mins ReadNews

Announcing our RAG-Based Revenue-Sharing Model for Academic Publishers

We are excited to announce a first-of-its-kind revenue-sharing model for AI-generated content, ensuring that publishers are fairly compensated when their paywalled research is cited by AI. Zendy Co-founder Kamran Kardan Our domain-specific large language model (LLM), ZAIA, uses Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to retrieve data from a diverse collection of open access (OA) and paywalled metadata through licensing agreements with publishers. Based on reference generation by the LLM, our new revenue-sharing model enables a fair and sustainable approach to compensating academic publishers for the use of their content by AI. Empowering Publishers with AI Innovation For years, major academic publishers have been cautious about AI companies using their research, citing copyright concerns, revenue impact, and the need for proper attribution. Our new model introduces a transparent, ethical approach for publishers to monetise their content in the AI era. Many large language models are restricted to training on publicly available research, as major publishers have not yet actively licensed their work to AI companies. Our revenue-sharing model is one of the first of its kind, ensuring clear consent, proper attribution, and fair compensation based on content retrieval. The transparent revenue-sharing mechanism ensures fair compensation for publishers based on the number of references provided in ZAIA’s responses. Our co-founder, Kamran Kardan, said: "This is a positive shift for the academic publishing industry. For the first time, AI is being used to drive revenue back to publishers instead of bypassing them. Ethical AI also means giving credit—and compensation—where it’s due. In the long term, we believe even authors should share in this revenue." We are partnering with a range of international publishers on this model, including IT Governance, Lexxion, British Online Archives, and Lived Places Publishing. Additionally, the RAG model is available for open access publishers, and we are currently exploring alternative compensation models for open access. A Leap Forward for Researchers and Institutions ZAIA provides users with precise, contextually relevant content tailored to their research needs. It offers answers to researchers' questions with reference-backed responses, ensuring that researchers and institutions can access high-quality, peer-reviewed materials while supporting the publishers who produce them. Promoting Sustainable and Ethical AI Content Partnerships To deliver accurate, unbiased, and comprehensive insights, large language models (LLMs) require diverse academic content. Our RAG-based model encourages broader collaboration between publishers and AI companies, fostering ethical agreements rooted in mutual licensing. Direct licensing with publishers allows us to guarantee high-quality, accurate, and up-to-date content, including retractions and data updates, thereby placing research integrity at the heart of our platform and our development of sustainable AI. We invite publishers, researchers, and institutions to collaborate in shaping the future of AI-driven research. To learn more about partnership opportunities, visit www.zendy.io or contact us at partnerships@zendy.io. About Zendy We are an AI-powered research library with over 780,000 users across 190+ countries. Designed to streamline the research process, we provide access to millions of journals, articles, and e-books, while offering a range of AI-driven tools, including ZAIA, an AI assistant that helps researchers expedite their research journey. We collaborate with leading academic publishers to make scholarly content more accessible and affordable, ensuring that users can explore high-quality research with ease. Zendy was created to facilitate access to academic literature. By addressing the key challenges that researchers face with traditional ways of finding relevant, high-quality academic content, we strive to provide peace of mind to students, researchers, professionals, and knowledge enthusiasts. We are developed by Knowledge E in a growing collaboration with researchers, students, institutions, and publishers. Our mission is to democratise access to content by making it more affordable and accessible. There are no limitations on reading, just simple access to scholarly resources. For more information visit zendy.io. .wp-block-image img { max-width: 85% !important; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; }