New Delhi: A game changer in the store for Indian researchers. The Union Government is seriously pushing a bold ‘one nation, one subscription’ proposal. Under this proposal scholarly literature will be accessible for free to everyone in the country, according to media reports.
Under ‘one nation, one subscription’, all the academic institutions can have the institutional corporate membership under which the academia i.e. teaching faculty members, library professionals, research scientists, the students of under-graduate, post graduate, doctoral level including the private universities and colleges, can access the desired e-Journals at a very competitive rates devoid administrative hassles.
The Government of India, under its latest science, technology and innovation policy, developed by the office of the Principal Scientific Advisor K Vijay Raghavan and the Science and Technology Ministry, is expected to release a draft of the proposal in the coming days, the report stated.
Reacting to the development and news, Retired Indian diplomat Syed Akbaruddin, India’s former permanent representative to United Nations, has praised the government move and said “India pushes bold ‘one nation, one subscription’ journal-access plan. A game changer in the offing for Indian researchers, if it comes through”.
In order to make scholarly literature widely accessible, the government would negotiate with the world’s biggest scientific publishers to establish nationwide subscriptions, instead of many agreements with individual institutions that only scholars can use, the report stated citing the researchers consulting for the government. Furthermore, a draft of the proposal will likely be approved by the Union Cabinet before the year’s end.
The media report mentioned as per the data compiled by the US National Science Foundation, India was the third-largest producer of science and engineering articles in 2018, publishing more than 135,000 documents. As a large research producer, the country’s position might carry more weight in negotiations with publishers than smaller nations that produce less, claims the report.
