One Nation, One Subscription (ONOS) Initiative

The Indian government launched the ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ (ONOS) initiative to improve access to research journals for public education and research institutes. This plan aims to address the high costs of subscribing to scientific journals, which many public institutions struggle to afford.

Purpose of ONOS:

• Scientific journals are used to publish research findings. These journals usually charge fees for access. Subscription-based journals charge readers to access published papers, while open-access journals (OA) allow free access but often charge researchers to publish.
• Before ONOS, India had around 10 consortia that helped public institutes subscribe to journals at a collective cost.
• ONOS will replace these consortia with a single platform to provide more than 13,000 journals from 30 international publishers, like Springer-Nature, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis, to all government-funded educational and research institutes in the country.

Criticism of ONOS:

When ONOS was first announced, it faced several criticisms:

• Lack of clarity: The government did not specify which journals would be included, how the Rs 6,000 crore budget would be used, or how ONOS would support open-access publishing.
• Domestic vs foreign journals: Experts questioned if the funds allocated for foreign journals could have been better used to support Indian publishing.
• Open access concerns: It was unclear whether ONOS would support Article Processing Charges (APCs) for publishing in open-access journals.

Clarifications

• Access to journals: Students and staff at all public institutions can now access papers from participating journals for free.
  • The initiative will include journals from major publishers, and negotiations are underway to add more journals to ONOS.
  • Institutes will not have to pay any additional fees to access these journals.
• Phased Implementation:
  • Phase I: Merge existing consortia to facilitate access to journals in all public institutes.
  • Phase II: Expand the plan to include private institutions.
  • Phase III: Provide universal access to all citizens through public libraries.
• Open Access (OA):
  • Pilot for OA: Rs 150 crore annually will be allocated to support APCs for publishing in open-access journals. The government has also negotiated discounted APCs for Indian researchers.
  • Currently, about 60-70% of the journals included in ONOS are subscription-based.
  • Officials acknowledged that open-access models are evolving and ONOS will adapt to support them as the system matures.
• Support for Domestic Publishers: The government acknowledged the need to support Indian publishers. While India has five digital repositories for researchers to upload papers for free access, they are not being used widely enough.
  • A new research evaluation framework will be developed to focus more on the merit of researchers’ work rather than just the prestige of the journals they publish in.
• Global Context: The officials clarified that ONOS is not meant to promote one publishing model over another but is a practical solution tailored to India’s needs. The aim is to bridge the gap until a more sustainable open-access model is globally achieved.