New Delhi, Nov 25 (IANS): The Centre on Monday approved the ‘One Nation One Subscription’ scheme to provide country-wide access to international high-impact scholarly research articles and journal publications to students, faculty and researchers with an outlay of Rs 6,000 crore.
The fund — allocated for three calendar years (2025, 2026 and 2027) as a new central sector scheme — will help students and researchers of all higher education institutions managed by the central government and state governments and Research and Development Institutions of the central government, said the Union Cabinet.
The initiative will open a goldmine of knowledge available in top-quality scholarly journals to nearly 1.8 crore students, faculty, researchers and scientists of all disciplines, including those in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, thereby encouraging core as well as interdisciplinary research in the country
According to the Cabinet, a total of 30 major international journal publishers have been included in ‘One Nation One Subscription’.
All of the nearly 13,000 e-journals published by these publishers will now be accessible to more than 6,300 government Higher Education Institutions and Central government R&D institutions, said the Cabinet.
Access to journals will be provided through a national subscription coordinated by the Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET), an autonomous inter-university centre of the University Grants Commission (UGC) through an entirely digital process
This will supplement the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) initiative to promote research and development and foster a culture of research and innovation throughout government universities, colleges, research institutions and R&D laboratories.
The ANRF will periodically review the usage of One Nation One Subscription and publications of Indian authors of these institutions.
The Department of Higher Education will have a unified portal “One Nation One Subscription” through which the institutions will be able to access the journals, according to the Cabinet.