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Two departments within India’s Ministry of Science and Technology, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) have released a new Open Access Policy. Under the new policy, researchers who receive funding or use resources from from these departments can still publish in any journals they wish, but they will need to deposit copies of the final papers and supporting data in institutional repositories where the information can be accessed by the public:

 “The final accepted manuscript (after refereeing, revision, etc.) resulting from research projects, which are fully or partially funded by DBT or DST, or were performed using infrastructure built with the support of these 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 the acknowledgement should carry the grant number.”

Researchers must deposit their works in the repositories within two weeks of acceptance by a journal, but if the journal requires an embargo, the repository will not make the paper available until the embargo ends.  The Open Access Policy makes clear, however, that “the essence of the policy is to enhance public exposure of the research… expeditiously.” It recommends a maximum embargo of six months for science, technology and medicine papers, and twelve months for arts, humanities, and social science papers.

The full open access policy is available here.