The open access movement received a huge boost last week when the United States announced that all tax-payer funded research carried out through federal research agencies must be made publicly available.
The memorandum issued by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, attached to the White House, recommends that federal agencies with R&D expenditure must implement public access policies which enable all peer-reviewed scholarly publications to be made freely and publicly accessible by default, without any embargo or delay after their publication. This also applies to any scientific data generated pursuant to research. Agencies must update their public access policies to this effect no later than December 31, 2025.
In December 2014, India also took steps towards making publicly funded research openly accessible. The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) ordered each institution receiving funding from the respective departments to set up an institutional open access repository for its research papers and articles published in peer-reviewed journals. It encouraged authors to inform the publishers about the obligation to deposit their work in such institutional repositories. The policy allows for an embargo period of 6 and 12 months for STEM and humanities disciplines respectively.
However, this policy is insufficient in so far as it applies only to research funded by two departments of the Union Government. Moreover, it does not address the problem of gatekeeping by international publishers which enables them to charge prohibitively high rates for subscription in the first place.
Proposals for Effective Open Access in India
Indian researchers and students have to bear the cost to access knowledge contained in research publications and journals, and since these are published by foreign players tne subscription charges are unaffordable. The draft STIP policy of 2020 proposed a ‘one nation one subscription’ model to overcome the problem but this has not been implemented yet. It is imperative that Indians have easy access to taxpayer-funded research work produced in the country at the least.
1. National Public Research Database (NPRD)
NPRD will be a public repository of all research output from central and state government funded research. This includes research output obtained using infrastructure built or supported by public institutions.
NPRD can also invite contributions from public research from other countries as well as private contributions at both national and international levels.
While it is optimal that research output is published in NPRD immediately upon becoming available, an embargo of up to six months can be allowed for publications with international publishers, until such time India develops world-class publication mechanisms.
The Ministry of Education (MoE) should be the nodal agency for NPRD.
2. Open Journals of India
MoE should also facilitate setting up of a family of open journals across disciplines, as a credible platform for publishing research instead of opting for foreign publishers.
In order for this to happen, the editorial boards and peer review panels must be staffed with top-class academicians and experts. The editorial process must maintain high standards to ensure that the open journals are credible and gain reputation.
MoE must support journals which offer publication at competitive prices as compared to their international counterparts, provided that established quality criteria is met.
In due course and after open journals emerge as credible alternatives to international publications, governments can mandate publishing research work funded by tax-payer money in such journals.
While open journals can be in electronic formats only, open licensing must be given to those seeking to publish the work in print.
Merely creating institutional repositories is not sufficient as long as incentives of authors to publish their work in journals abroad are changed. Only through robust open journals can India usher in public access to knowledge so far locked up behind institutional barriers. This will be India’s crucial contribution to the open access movement.
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