India takes out giant nationwide subscription to 13,000 journals

India was the third largest producer of research papers globally last year—yet thousands of Indian students and researchers cannot read many of them because their institutions can’t afford subscriptions to the journals in which many appear. But that is about to change: Last week, the Indian government announced a giant deal with multiple publishers that will allow an estimated 18 million students, faculty, and researchers free access to nearly 13,000 journals, including some top-tier ones, through a single portal.

Under the One Nation One Subscription scheme, which kicks in on 1 January 2025, India will pay a total of about $715 million over 3 years to 30 global publishers, including some of the largest, such as Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Wiley. (AAAS, the publisher of Science, is also part of the deal.) The average annual amount exceeds what government-funded institutions have been paying for separate subscriptions—about $200 million in all during 2018, by one estimate. But because it covers more journals and readers, “India got a good deal,” says Devika Madalli, director of the Information and Library Network Centre, the coordinating agency for the initiative.