The International Grassland Congress has been held every 3-4 years since 1927. Each Congress in recent years has had 650 to over 1,000 delegates. The most recent of these Congresses was held in Kentucky in May of 2023. At each Congress each presenter submits a manuscript on their research finding. These go into a Proceeding volume or pdf that is distributed at the meeting. These volumes have been valued by delegates returning from the Congresses, but until recently it was difficult for others to access the papers. 

A collaboration was initiated between the UK Forage and Grassland program and the University of Kentucky library's UKnowledge program about 3 years ago. This collaboration has uploaded and published these papers so that they are available for researchers and extension personnel in the present and for perpetuity. Not only are the papers available, but they are formatted and uploaded in a way that they are available through any search engine worldwide.

We currently have all the papers uploaded from the 2023, 2021, 2016, 2013, 2008, 2005, 2001 Congresses and have almost completed uploading the papers from 1997 Congress. As of July 2024 over 250,000 papers have currently been downloaded from this repository from over 215 countries and 8355 institutions. This does not even include the number of views of the abstracts of these papers. 

Because of this initiative researchers from around the world now have access to current research findings and access to historic research. 

UK Forage Specialist Involved: S. Ray Smith, Chris Teutsch, and Jimmy Henning