First phase of ‘One Nation One Subscription’ approved: How the scheme can improve govt institutions’ access to journals

Here’s a breakdown of the existent system, the Cabinet’s approval, and the roadmap for this initiative.

How bash HEIs presently entree journals?

Currently, HEIs tin entree journals done 10 antithetic room consortia which are nether the administrative power of assorted ministries. A room consortium is simply a radical of 2 oregon much libraries that person agreed to cooperate to fulfil definite akin needs, usually assets sharing. For instance, INFLIBNET Centre (Information and Library Network Centre) successful Gandhinagar is an Inter-University Centre of the University Grants Commission nether the Ministry of Education (India) which oversees the UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium, providing entree to selected scholarly physics journals and databases successful antithetic disciplines.

Apart from this, HEIs besides subscribe to respective journals individually. According to authorities estimates, astir 2,500 HEIs tin entree 8,100 journals done the supra networks and idiosyncratic subscriptions.

What does the ONOS strategy offer?

Through the ONOS scheme, the Centre aims to consolidate the disaggregated attack to diary entree for each authorities HEIs. ONOS volition alteration authorities and cardinal authorities HEIs to entree thousands of journals connected 1 platform, which volition beryllium progressive from January 1, 2025.

This communal level volition big 13,000 journals published by 30 planetary publishers including Elsevier Science Direct (including Lancet), Springer Nature, Wiley Blackwell Publishing, Taylor & Francis, IEEE, Sage Publishing, American Chemical Society, and American Mathematical Society, among others. All institutions volition lone request to registry connected the level to entree these journals. INFLIBNET has been designated arsenic the implementing bureau for this initiative. The cardinal authorities negotiated 1 subscription terms for each of the 30 antithetic publishers and approved Rs 6,000 crore for 3 calendar years — 2025, 2026 and 2027.

“If HEIs inactive privation entree to journals extracurricular the 13,000 disposable connected the communal platform, they tin subscribe to them individually,” an serviceman told The Indian Express.

What is the request for ONOS?

The ONOS strategy has been justified connected 4 grounds.

First, it would grow entree to the champion scholarly journals for 55 lakh to astir 1.8 crore students, faculty, and researchers crossed astir 6,300 authorities universities, colleges, probe bodies, and Institutions of National Importance (INIs), including those successful Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

Second, it would debar duplication of diary subscriptions crossed antithetic room consortia and idiosyncratic higher acquisition institutions and hence trim excess expenditure connected overlapping resources.

Third, a azygous subscription for each cardinal and authorities authorities HEIs would supply amended bargaining powerfulness erstwhile negotiating with publishers. Citing an example, a root successful the cardinal authorities said, “We person been gathering with representatives of antithetic publishers implicit the past 2 years, and during this time, we person worked to negociate the champion price. As a result, the archetypal outgo of Rs 4,000 crore per twelvemonth for 13,000 journals has been reduced to Rs 1,800 crore.”

Fourth, the Centre volition summation insights into the grade to which journals are being accessed and downloaded by the authorities higher acquisition ecosystem, according to the official. “This volition not lone assistance successful semipermanent readying but besides let america to promote inactive institutions to afloat utilise the level and beforehand its benefits among their teachers, students, and researchers,” the serviceman said.

When was ONOS conceptualised?

The inaugural originates from the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which emphasised probe arsenic a cornerstone for achieving excellence successful acquisition and nationalist development. “If India is to go a person successful these disparate areas, and genuinely execute the imaginable of its immense endowment excavation to again go a starring cognition nine successful the coming years and decades, the federation volition necessitate a important enlargement of its probe capabilities and output crossed disciplines,” the NEP 2020 states. The argumentation powerfully recommended the constitution of a National Research Foundation (NRF) to seed, fund, nurture, and beforehand probe and improvement (R&D) portion fostering a civilization of innovation crossed India’s higher acquisition ecosystem.

In 2022, the cardinal authorities took a factual measurement toward this extremity by forming a halfway committee of secretaries, chaired by the Principal Scientific Advisor. This committee past constituted a outgo dialog sheet to transportation retired robust negotiations with diary publishers for the ONOS initiative. The Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) was established aboriginal this year.

What happens next?

The adjacent measurement is for the cardinal authorities to negociate Article Processing Charges (APCs) with diary publishers. APCs, besides known arsenic work fees, are charges authors indispensable wage to people successful definite journals. Scientific journals person assorted ways of generating income to screen publishing, editorial, operational, peer-review, and different functional costs. Open-access journals typically complaint a circumstantial interest for nonfiction processing, known arsenic the APC.

According to authorities estimates, authors successful India paid astir ₹380 crore to diary publishers arsenic APCs successful 2021. Similar to however the authorities negotiated a azygous subscription complaint for each government-run higher acquisition institutions (HEIs), it present aims to bash the aforesaid for APCs. The Centre believes this attack volition trim wide costs. To execute this, subject-specific groups of experts from participating ministries volition beryllium formed to negociate with journals connected APCs for probe papers.

As for whether ONOS volition besides screen backstage HEIs, the authorities has not yet made a decision, sources said.