India's two main science funding agencies are pushing researchers to submit their accepted papers to repositories that are freely accessible to the public, ScienceInsider reports.
The December announcement from the Ministry of Science and Technology instructs researchers who receive even a portion of their funding from its science and biotechnology divisions to deposit their papers in a repository within two weeks of being accepted by a peer-reviewed journal. ScienceInsider notes that some papers may not be immediately available if the journal requests a six month to 12 month delay.
Additionally, institutions that receive ministry funds are to set up a repository for papers produced there and the ministry itself will develop a central system that links those various institutional repositories together.
"It is a step in the right direction," Shahid Jameel, CEO of the Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance, tells ScienceInsider. Jameel further notes that the new requirement will affect "an overwhelming majority of scientific research in India" that is government funded.