To conduct new research, scholars need access to past studies. But often that costs money that many can’t afford. India is trying to fix that problem.
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In the past, Gitanjali Yadav, like many other Indian researchers, would have used illegal online libraries to access academic journal articles. Now a new initiative by the Indian government brings hope as a legal alternative, delivering free article access to researchers across India.
While Yadav benefits from the new scheme, it has brought her new challenges.
Despite being one of the world’s top scientific research countries, many Indian universities don’t have enough funding for researchers to read the papers they need.
The Indian government sought to solve this issue with the One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) scheme. ONOS gives public Indian academic institutions free access to academic journals.
But just as soon as the government gave access, they also took it away. Following the ONOS launch, another important website for reading academic articles was shut down.
Previously Sci-Hub, an illegal academic library, was the one-stop shop to read and download academic literature. Many Indian academics relied on it to access articles behind paywalls. But now the platform has been banned, leaving many Indian academics, and their research, without options.
A researcher at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research, Yadav downloads and analyzes thousands of academic articles for her research. Now, her attempts to access these articles on a mass scale have led to blocks by publishers even though her institution has subscriptions.
Why access matters
Researchers worry that ONOS will not be able to replace Sci-Hub effectively, and that this will lead to downstream effects in conducting research.
India’s access problems raise a bigger question: can countries in the Global South compete in science when they don’t have the same access to information as richer countries?
Obtaining academic articles isn’t always simple. Similar to checking a book out from a library, you can only read an article if it is held in a library’s collection. Access to research papers is given through universities and academic institutions.
Academic journal subscriptions and publishing fees are estimated to earn $10 billion annually in the United States alone. The average cost of an annual subscription to a single journal by an Indian institution is around $1,300, though journals are often sold together in packages. The costs of these packages can vary, but a large Indian institution could expect to pay $50,000 for one year’s access, making the fee unaffordable for many Indian institutions.
Meanwhile, the researchers who provide articles and provide peer review for the journals are unpaid for their work
Paywall problems
Without access through their university, many academic articles are kept behind paywalls. Researchers can pay to read a paper, but fees average around $50 for a single article, and Indian universities can’t pay for all the journals they need.
“You’re somebody working in an Indian laboratory,” said Peter Murray-Rust, Cambridge researcher and well-known advocate for Open Access science. “What are you going to do? You’re going to pirate it.”
Launched in 2011, Sci-Hub changed Indian research by allowing anyone to illegally read articles for free, even if the articles were behind paywalls.
One fan was Jonny Coates, the executive director of Rippling Ideas, an organization that advocates for open access to scholarly works. “There are some people who tell you, actually, what Sci-Hub’s done is it solved the access problem,” he said.
At its peak, Sci-Hub provided access to over 81 million research articles. For academics in India, many started downloading articles illegally. The country downloaded over 5 million articles from Sci-Hub in 2017 alone.
Is ONOS a game changer?
Comments from hundreds of Indian researchers can be found thanking Alexandra Elkyban, Sci-Hub’s founder, online: “The website Sci-Hub you have developed is like an oasis in the desert for people like me,” wrote Indian researcher Keshav Moharir. “God bless you.”
Now the platform is banned, and the Indian research scene is changing. The Indian ban on Sci-Hub follows a 2020 lawsuit filed by major academic publishers like Elsevier and Wiley.
When the Indian government launched the $715 million ONOS initiative earlier this year it was heralded as a solution to the access problem because it gave eligible public institutions free access to 13,000 academic journals.
The announcement was met with much excitement: cutting-edge research could now be pursued without financial barriers. Researchers from small institutions were enthusiastic that they could finally access the resources previously limited to top tier universities. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi described it as a “game-changer for Indian academia and for youth empowerment,” in an X post.
But ONOS has also faced criticism from researchers. For those offered ONOS, more than half are still waiting to use the platform, and it’s unclear why they remain without access. At the same time, ONOS also only covers a small portion of the some 40,000 academic journals worldwide, limiting access to specialized publications that can be important for researchers. And there are logistical challenges, highlighted by Yardav’s difficulties.
Private universities, meanwhile, are left without ONOS or Sci-Hub. And some say it will be difficult for them to conduct research going forward.
Beyond India
India’s challenges show a bigger problem in the Global South. In contrast to institutions in high-income countries, those in the Global South have less money and fewer legal ways to read papers. That means that Global South countries are less likely to be able to read paywalled papers and include them in their own research. And because of this, their research may not be as strong or influential.
Lack of access can also influence what type of research gets done. A recent study by researchers at NYU Abu Dhabi on paywalls and scientific data concluded that paywalls can compound disparities between who gets access and who doesn’t and who ends up contributing to the global production of knowledge.
One researcher from Ghana quoted in the study noted that the availability of papers could affect which projects he recommends to his students.
Murray-Rust said that being able to read the body of research is so essential for conducting good science, that in many cases, piracy becomes a standard practice.
Whether government-led schemes can replace grassroots alternatives like Sci-Hub effectively is yet to be seen.
Researchers like Yadav fear that ONOS will end up being more symbolic rather than a real change for India’s research community. For now, India’s academic community finds itself in a difficult phase of transition.
Questions to consider:
1. Why does it cost money to access some research studies?
2. Who should fund scholarly research?
3. If you put a lot of time and money into conducting a research study, would you give away the results for free? Why or why not?
Charissa Egger is a journalist and science writer with a master’s degree in cognitive and clinical neuroscience. Her work explores the mind and body, mental health, and the culture of science. She is currently a fellow in Journalism & Health Impact at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.