The United States (US) announced recently that all taxpayer-supported research must be immediately made available to the public at no cost. This will become the norm by the end of 2025. This policy is likely to have worldwide ramifications.
The US’s plan mirrors the European Union’s Plan S and India’s open-access policy. The latter has been in force since 2015, with all publicly funded work mandated to be placed in institutional repositories. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The US’s plan mirrors the European Union’s Plan S and India’s open-access policy. The latter has been in force since 2015, with all publicly funded work mandated to be placed in institutional repositories. But implementation has been poor, with most research behind paywalls. Recognising the importance of making scientific knowledge accessible, the draft National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP) 2020, called for a one nation, one subscription model, whereby all Indian academics could access published scientific works via a single subscription. However, with the market power held by global scientific publishers, there has been little progress.
For scientists, publishing in well regarded journals, controlled by a small set of global publishers, is vital to building their reputation. The current business model of publishers is to make money via subscription fees for their journals, and/or by charging authors publication fees. The US’s move to make content open- access is likely to impact this model’s profitability.
The positive externalities associated with open-access publishing enjoin that scientific knowledge is universally available. The popularity of Sci-Hub, which provides free access to publications, is evidence that there is a demand for scientific literature at price points that current publishing monopolies don’t serve. A government-supported open-access model would solve the copyright problem and move the knowledge market in the direction Sci-Hub has shown. The likely response by publishers will either be to demand that all publications to pay exorbitant open-access fees or increase subscription costs to compensate for the loss of revenue. Both negatively impact Indian scientists, the first by raising immediate costs of article publication and the second by limiting access to prior published research. The circumstances call for India to implement its mandated open-access policy while increasing research funding to cover the increased costs.
The current policy creates institutional repositories and archives for publishing articles before peer review. While this provides a valuable option, it omits peer review, which provides a layer of credibility and is an aid for non-experts to trust the published results. Further, such repositories cannot substitute for the reputational benefits of publishing in recognised journals and their search or discovery value. India would do better to invest in improving domestically run scientific journals, while cracking down on predatory and dubious publications. As the US policy pushes authors to publish in open-access journals, a window has opened for new or less-established journals to compete with established publishers as they transition from subscription to open-access models. The thousands of dollars in publication fees charged by legacy publishers are a massive cost to even the US taxpayers. In this market, Indian journals that provide quality publications at lower costs have an opportunity to establish themselves.
Finally, with the advent of new technology, publishing in traditional peer reviewed journals is becoming outdated. Therefore, there is a need to think beyond the present system that restricts scientific work to the form of a printed (or online) document. For example, innovative journals can experiment with multimedia publications that include images and videos.
The transition to open access has been difficult, with entrenched market players putting up stiff resistance and the lock-in effect of journal reputations making scientists reluctant to experiment with new publishing venues. India’s academia and publishers need to take this opportunity to establish a presence in a domain where it is still a marginal player. In the short-term, India needs to support its researchers through increased funding and find ways to make Indian publishers globally competitive. In addition, publicly funded scientific knowledge should be made publicly available, and this signalling by the US is another step in that direction.
Shambhavi Naik and Mihir Mahajan are with the Takshashila Institution The views expressed are personal
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