Cultivating a culture of quality in Indian research
This article is authored by Laura Hassink, managing director, Journals, Elsevier.
Quality research accelerates progress for society, industry, and people. In an age marked by rising misinformation and dynamic challenges related to health and climate, research plays a crucial role in developing relevant and effective solutions. While academia may often be regarded as an insular sector, it is ultimately trustworthy research that allows us to solve for the most pressing public challenges, contributing to the common good, whether it’s the Covid-19 or HPV vaccines, climate-resilient agriculture, or even evidence-backed policy support.
Robust research capabilities make the difference between homegrown innovation and reliance on other nations for urgent solutions. As India deepens its commitment as a leader of the Global South, it must assert its research calibre through an ever-increasing focus on quality. This will not only help build global confidence in India’s research integrity but also create new opportunities for growth and advancement for an Atmanirbhar Bharat.
Good research builds a developed nation. Trustworthy research requires high standards, adequate funding, a supportive and collaborative environment, and easy access to research support.
Despite India’s abundant talent, the country suffers from a perceived lack of research quality, often affected by a range of interrelated factors including chronic underfunding, lack of mentorship, institutional bottlenecks, and infrastructural inadequacies. According to the 2022 Confidence in Research report, since the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers (especially those from the Global South) feel that there is deeper inequality in funding and resources. This has further widened the gap between researchers in the Global North and South.
Researchers are significant impact-makers and are crucial to the goal of Viksit Bharat. Their work will build the foundation for the development and adoption of innovative technologies and processes that facilitate India’s sustainable development. However, challenges like higher incidences of academic fraud and the pressure to publish that is prevalent in academic circles threaten the ability of research to be truly impactful, improving health and social outcomes.
Building general confidence in research from India requires systemic interventions and strong collaborative efforts. This means stronger linkages between academia and industries, deeper partnerships with international institutions and bodies, and an improved culture of motivation and support across the country to produce sound research.
Publishers in particular have a crucial role to play in ensuring the reliability and integrity of research. This includes rigorous processes for editorial and peer review to comprehensively evaluate each submission. The high volume of submissions may create pressure on journals, but investing in expert human oversight combined with advanced technologies can help publishers properly review each submission to maintain high-quality output. Combating academic misconduct and fraud requires a comprehensive monitoring system in place with multiple levels of validation, helping publishers stay vigilant. Ultimately, we want and need continuous discovery, while ensuring that research is reliable and of the highest quality.
Irresponsible and indiscriminate use of GenAI can introduce biases and inaccuracies in research and make academic fraud more complex and harder to detect. Publishers have a responsibility to develop frameworks for responsible use of AI tools in research and train researchers and editors accordingly. Journals must also take proactive steps to educate researchers on publication ethics and collaborate with institutions and other industry players to promote best practices. This can help safeguard trust in research, allowing it to inform interventions for the benefit of the public and elevate global credibility for India’s researchers. The seeds that India needs to sow for quality research across the board are research infrastructure, robust and accessible research support, and systemic processes for quality control. Building research infrastructure requires deepening capabilities of academic institutions and universities to undertake research projects across STEM and other disciplines, particularly towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Aside from physical infrastructure, such as labs and equipment, digital research infrastructure is equally important. India has already made significant gains in Digital Public Infrastructure (DPIs) for various social and economic purposes, such as digital payments through United Payments Interface (UPI). Innovating and supporting digital infrastructure that enables and accelerates research, by digitising data and making it open source, can improve research outcomes for scholars in India and beyond.
Research bodies and universities must provide comprehensive research support to scholars, researchers, and scientists. This includes tools and databases to make data easily accessible, promote inter-sectoral research, and widen the insight pool that researchers can rely on. Institutional tools to identify and tap into funding and collaboration opportunities are critical to address funding droughts and enable research projects to continue uninterrupted despite external constraints. Research institutions need to develop a proactive organisational strategy that addresses specific gaps and identifies pathways to improve research culture in their context and sector. And academic publishers have a responsibility to ensure a healthy global distribution of the pool of editors and reviewers to aid the advancement of Indian researchers and their research.
Perhaps most importantly, we need to reimagine our metrics of success. We must make high-quality research a standard. This requires upholding the principles of a robust peer review process, as well as putting in place stricter checks for plagiarism and data fabrication. It also necessitates a stronger culture of collaboration and mentorship to allow every researcher to achieve their potential and contribute easily to national development as well as global knowledge pools. Small steps to improve our research capabilities today will yield massive future returns for a self-reliant, developed India.
This article is authored by Laura Hassink, managing director, Journals, Elsevier.
