IISc Hosts the Springer Nature India Research Tour team

Bengaluru, NT Bureau: Springer Nature Group CEO Frank Vrancken Peeters emphasized the need for collaboration between the research community, publishers and policymakers to strengthen the country’s research landscape and to promote the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru hosted the 9th research summit as part of Springer Nature’s India Research Tour, being conducted in collaboration with the Indian Ministry of Education on Monday (Oct. 9)

The event focused on the role of open science and transformative agreements to make research more accessible for all. Under a transformative agreement subscription access and OA publishing are brought together into one reading and publishing contract across a consortium of institutions.

This means that researchers in those institutions can publish under the “gold” open access model, while also gaining access to research in subscription journals.

Speaking at the event, Frank Vrancken Peeters, CEO of Springer Nature Group said: “India is one of the fastest growing research markets in the world, second only to China. While the Indian government with its recent National Research Fund Act has reaffirmed its commitment towards research in the country, it is important that researchers, publishers and the policymakers work together to make research more accessible globally. Open Access publishing and Transformative Agreements are instrumental in enabling sustainable country-level transition to Open Access, which will make research more visible across geographies.”

Speaking on the occasion, Prof. Govindan Rangarajan, Director of IISC Bengaluru said: “Research is the underlying theme of this tour, and research is what we concentrate on at IISc. Going forward, research will play a more important role, given all the challenges we face. We saw these huge challenges posed by the pandemic, and now we are facing the challenge posed by climate change, stress on water resources etc. all these are challenges that need to be addressed collectively. I am sure we can provide better exposure to young researchers through such initiatives.”

The Springer Nature India Research Tour was flagged off at the Indian Ministry of Education’s office at Shastri Bhavan on September 27. It is set to cover 15 institutes across 10 states in India over 20 days. IISC at Bengaluru was its 9th stop.

The 180-year old New York based publishing house Springer Nature has been engaged in publishing books on environment, ecology, Nature, Natural sciences and other scientific issues in collaboration with leading research institutes.