OPERATING AND FINANCIAL REVIEW the demands for greater efficiency and productivity in the research process. In healthcare, advances in medical science and procedures and the demand for improved medical outcomes drive the need for high quality specialist information and associated online tools. The Science & Technology division of Elsevier supplies scientific and technical information for libraries, scientists and professionals serving a wide range of research fields. It is a leading global academic journal publisher and each year publishes over 150,000 new research articles in some 1,200 journals and 1,000 new book titles. Elsevier also publishes secondary material in the form of supporting bibliographic data, indexes and abstracts, and tertiary information in the form of review and reference works. Its flagship electronic product, ScienceDirect, is a full text online research service holding over 5 million scientific articles and 15 major reference works. The fully searchable database is used by over 5 million researchers each year and has provided significant improvements in productivity through quicker and easier access to high quality content. Legal and regulatory markets worldwide are seeing continuing expansion in legislative activity and increasing demand for legal services, together with a focus on improved efficiency and productivity. Additional opportunities are developing beyond the core research market, through the delivery of online workflow support services. Increasingly legal information and services are being delivered online, with considerable potential to deliver such products in markets outside the United States where online penetration is lower than in the US legal market. In recent years, LexisNexis has, with its comprehensive US public records databases, expanded in the market for risk solutions. This is growing strongly in the face of increasing credit card fraud and identity theft.  LexisNexis North America offers legal information products in electronic and print formats to law firms and practitioners, law schools and state and local governments in the United States and Canada. Its North American Legal Markets division provides statutes and case law for all 50 US states and Canada as well as research, analysis and citation services from Matthew Bender, Michie and Shepard’s. The Martindale Hubbell Law Directory, including the martindale.com databases, provides access to the qualifications and credentials of over one million lawyers and law firms worldwide. LexisNexis also operates in fast growing areas beyond its core research product. These include electronic filing of documents with courts and electronic access and monitoring of court records as well as electronic legal discovery applications. The Corporate and Federal Markets division offers LexisNexis products and services to corporations, federal government agencies and academic institutions together with news, business, financial and public records content. Its risk management applications are designed to assist customers in managing risk through fraud detection and prevention, identity verification, pre- employment screening and due diligence. Outside North America, LexisNexis International serves markets in Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America with a range of local and international legal, tax, regulatory and business information solutions.  The Health Sciences division of Elsevier comprises an international network of nursing, health professions and medical publishing and communications businesses. The division supplies healthcare and medical information to medical researchers, practising professionals and students. It publishes over 8,000 textbooks and clinical reference works and over 500 journals. Elsevier is also accelerating the development of electronic products. These include multimedia products for use by both medical faculties and students to support core textbooks as well as online products for continuing practitioner education. Internationally, Elsevier is leveraging both its print and online content into new markets through adaptation and translation. The Excerpta Medica communications business publishes customised information for healthcare professionals, medical societies and pharmaceutical companies. The legal business, LexisNexis, provides legal, tax, regulatory and business information to professional, business and government customers internationally. Total revenues for the year ended 31 December 2003 were £1,318 million/ € 1,911 million. The education business, Harcourt Education, publishes school textbooks and related instructional and assessment materials, principally in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Legal Education 4 REED ELSEVIER ANNUAL REPORTS & FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 2003