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DBT and DST Open Access Policy
Policy on open access to DBT and DST funded research

Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science & Technology
Ministry of Science & Technology
Government of India

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Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science & Technology
Ministry of Science & Technology
Government of India

DBT and DST Open Access Policy
Policy on open access to DBT and DST funded research
The Department of Biotechnology (“DBT”) and the Department of Science and Technology (“DST”) areconstituent departments within the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India.

An important function of the DBT and DST is to support basic, translational and applied scientificresearch through the creation of suitable infrastructure, by providing funding to individual scientists,institutions and start-ups, and through any other means deemed necessary.

Since all funds disbursed by the DBT and DST are public funds, it is important that the information andknowledge generated through the use of these funds are made publicly available as soon as possible,
subject to Indian law and IP policies of respective funding agencies and institutions where the research isperformed1.

The DBT and DST recognize the right of researchers to publish their work in journals of their choice,because researchers are the best judges of where to publish their work. The DBT and DST expect that therecipients of funding will publish their research in high quality, peer-reviewed journals.

The DBT and DST affirms the principle that the intrinsic merit of the work, and not the title of the journal
in which an author’s work is published, should be considered in making future funding decisions. The

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DBT and DST do not recommend the use of journal impact factors either as a surrogate measure of thequality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring,promotion, or funding decisions.

The DBT and DST believe that maximizing the distribution of these publications by providing free online
access by depositing them in an institutional repository is the most effective way of ensuring that theresearch it funds can be accessed, read and built upon. The digital context of the production anddissemination of knowledge makes it especially easy to make all knowledge publicly available. Further,free, open and digital access of scientific research will ensure percolation of cutting edge research at a
rapid pace into higher education curricula, thereby raising the standard of technical and scientificeducation in the country. This in turn, will foster a richer research culture.

Institutional Repository
In order to achieve the aforementioned objectives, each institution is encouraged to set up its own interoperable institutional open access repository (“IR”) for its research papers and review articles publishedin peer-reviewed journals. The Ministry of Science and Technology has set up a central harvester(www.sciencecentral.in) that will harvest the full text and metadata of these publications. This central
harvester will have a link to each institutional repository.
Institutions that receive core funding2 from DBT and DST will be required to have an IR. Such
institutions that currently do not have an IR will be required to create one as soon as possible.
There will be help available for this purpose.3

For all other institutions, it is recommended that they have an IR.

Researchers from institutions that currently do not have their own IR can submit their publications into
the central repositories created by the DBT and DST.4

Posting to an online repository:
What should be deposited?

The final accepted manuscript (after refereeing, revision, etc.) resulting from research projects, which are

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fully or partially funded by DBT or DST, or were performed using infrastructure built with the support ofthese organizations, should be deposited. This also includes review articles, both invited and author
initiated, for those who received funding from DBT or DST during that period. The full-text of the paper,metadata and supplementary materials should be deposited. At the end of the full-text theacknowledgement should carry the grant number.

Papers resulting from funds received from the fiscal year 2012-13 onwards are required to be deposited.
Authors are recommended to also deposit manuscripts of their earlier publications even if they areunrelated to current projects funded by DBT or DST. Institutions are encouraged to use these repositories
as central repositories for all the publications arising from research in their organizations irrespective ofsource of funding.

Where to deposit?

The manuscript should be deposited in the grantee’s respective IR. If the institution does not yet have anIR of its own, then the manuscript should be deposited in the central repositories (dbt.sciencecentral.in
and dst.sciencecentral.in) created by DBT and DST respectively as mentioned under

section on“Institutional Repository”.

When to deposit?

Deposits should be made within two weeks, preferably as sooner, following acceptance by the journal.
The essence of the policy is to enhance public exposure of the research and it is therefore in theresearchers’ own interest to do so expeditiously. However, if the journal insists on an embargo, thematerial should still be deposited, and the IR will make the paper(s) available at the end of the embargo
period.5 It is recommended that the period of embargo should be no longer than 6 months for Science,
Technology and Medicine (STM) disciplines and 12 months for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

Who should deposit?

This policy applies to individual researchers and/or institutions who have directly received funding orother support/benefits/infrastructure from the DBT or DST, as well as to scientists working at DBT orDST-aided autonomous institutions who benefit directly or indirectly from the infrastructure and core

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funding provided by these organizations.

The principal investigator (PI) or a person authorized by the PI, or anyone authorized by the head of theinstitution where the work is carried out (such as the librarian), can deposit the papers. It is theresponsibility of the PI and the head of the institution to ensure timely deposition of the paper.

Depositing in a repository is mandatory

The deposit ID should be quoted in the annual and completion reports (as applicable), as well as in future
proposals for funding.

How to deposit?

Researchers are recommended to follow their institutional guidelines for submission to their respective
IRs. Researchers whose institutions do not yet have an IR may contact the DBT or DST Central
Repository.4

Copyright

It is not the intent of this policy to violate copyright or other agreements entered into by the researcher,institution or funding agency. However, the DST and DBT expects the authors to bring to the notice ofpublishers their obligations under this policy to deposit the manuscript in institutional or central
depository of the funding agency.

Open Access awareness initiatives

Every year DBT and DST institutes will celebrate “Open Access Day” during the International Open
Access Week (http://www.openaccessweek.org/) by organizing sensitizing lectures, programmes,workshops and taking new open access initiatives.

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Footnotes
1

Funding agencies encourage institutions to seek protection of intellectual property rights in respect of

the results of R&D ( Refer Ministry of Science and Technology "Instructions for Technology Transfer
and Intellectual Property Rights", March 2000). In addition certain research institutions belonging toCSIR, ICAR, etc. have to comply with the IP Policies of their respective councils/societies.
2Institutions receiving ‘core funding’ are defined as the DBT autonomous institutions and DST-aidedinstitutions. Any institution that receives an annual grant that covers the salary, infrastructure and researchrequirements of its staff will come under this category.
3www.csircentral.net established up by CSIR-URDIP is an example of a central harvester. It also haslinks to IRs set up by number of CSIR laboratories. CSIR-URDIP has agreed to organize training
programmes for (a) personnel from DBT and DST laboratories who would be setting up institutional
repositories, and (b) scientists to change their perceptions towards open access.
4dbt.sciencecentral.in, dst.sciencecentral.in

5Requests for papers deposited in a repository, but which are under embargo, can be forwarded to theauthors by use of the Request Button available with the IR software.

Note: Search engines like Google and BASE will automatically scan IRs using standard software[compliant with Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH)]. However,authors (or IR managers) must register for scanning and providing citation information by Google
Scholar.

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