Open access availability patterns of Indian research publications during the last two decades

In the current era of knowledge-based economies and societies, access to knowledge and scientific advances is a key requirement for the scientific, technological and economic development of a country. Scientific research outcomes are often considered by many as a public good and hence it is often advocated that they should be openly and freely accessible to the scientific community and the wider society. To fulfil such aspirations, there have been several initiatives towards open access (OA), both globally and at national levels, including many important declarations and policies. India has also taken several initiatives over the last two decades to promote OA to scientific research outcomes, including putting in place mandates that require that all public funded research should be openly accessible. This article presents a quantitative analysis to understand how much of Indian research output from 2001 to 2020 is openly accessible, which in turn presents a reflection on the effectiveness of the various OA initiatives. The major OA routes adopted by Indian researchers and the subject-specific OA availability patterns are identified. Finally, the OA availability levels for funded and non-funded Indian research publications are determined. The results indicate growth in OA availability of Indian research papers, with green and gold OA routes being the preferred ones. A higher OA availability is observed in case of funded research publications. The article concludes with a brief discussion on the major patterns observed and their policy implications.