A Roadmap for Open Access Compliance in Publicly-Funded Research

Publicly funded research in India generates valuable knowledge, yet much of it remains locked behind journal paywalls—denying access to the very public whose taxes funded it. Although the DST and DBT adopted an Open Access (OA) Policy in 2014 mandating deposition of research outputs in open access institutional repositories, compliance has been inconsistent due to weak monitoring and a lack of robust repository infrastructure. This brief recommends that public funding agencies enforce two key measures: Mandatory Deposit of Final Version of Articles in an OA Repository & Strengthening Repository Infrastructure– Require Principal Investigators to deposit final accepted manuscripts from publicly funded projects in an institutional or national repository, with infrastructure strengthened to build a national repository system. Interim use of noncommercial, trusted international repositories is acceptable. Compliance Statements in Final Project Completion Reports – Mandate that project completion reports include a declaration of OA compliance, with URLs for deposited works in an institutional or national repository. These measures will ensure public accountability, improve traceability of research outcomes, enhance societal impact, protect national knowledge sovereignty, and align India with global best practices in open science.