Arun Rajamani, Managing Director, Cambridge University Press & Assessment, South Asia in a recent interaction with Janifha Evangeline, Editor, Higher Education Review magazine, shared his views on how open access publishing has influenced the visibility and impact of Indian research on the global stage, the challenges that Indian researchers face in accessing open access platforms and more.

Arun has over two decades of experience in the field of education and training. He is a seasoned administrator with a strong dedication to promoting learning. Prior to Cambridge, he held key positions at Microsoft Corporation India and Pluralsight India, consistently driving growth and impact within the education sector, besides working with HCL Infosystems.

How has open-access publishing influenced the visibility and impact of Indian research on the global stage? What challenges do Indian researchers face in accessing open-access platforms and how are these being addressed?

The South Asian region is gaining significant global importance, driven largely by its emerging demographic dividend. By 2035, over 60% of the population in this region will be between the ages of 18 to 30. This young and dynamic demographic, with many pursuing higher education, will naturally gravitate towards innovation and research. This shift presents an exciting opportunity for both the region and India, enabling transformative growth in education, research, and development.

Therefore, on a global scale, as our citizens start to become more relevant, and part of the global workforce to fulfil the needs of the talent deficit that other countries may see because of a declining population, this is the opportunity that Cambridge as an organization would like to address, and not just from a perspective of business and growth, but from truly empowering the nation to become research ready and also become an innovator. Therefore, the focus is on increasing the employability of the youth in the country. It is to empower researchers and learners with very high-quality learning solutions, learning opportunities, and research material that they can consume, which will all help in terms of driving more innovation, and research, and to look at India becoming a talent basket for the world.

Now when we look at how researchers are benefiting, there is no doubt that with open access, there is far more equity in terms of how content is being accessed by learners and researchers. And for a developing nation like ours, where we have more young researchers coming into the research field, this is a huge advantage for them to have access without being behind the paywall, and without having the financial burden of consuming content.

Therefore, democratic access is now becoming more pervasive for them to look at consuming more content. Consumption of content is also leading to more dissemination of article publishing and research. Also, what it is also doing is now without having paywall restrictions, their research articles are now being consumed at a wider scale by researchers across the world - by peers across the world.

Hence, it is becoming truly international as compared to the earlier situation, which was non-Open Access based models, where it was restricted to peers, and communities, which were very small or restricted in nature and this opening up without paywall restrictions is truly benefiting Indian researchers today. When we look at the challenges, open access is an emerging concept that's been around for many years, it still has not matured and it is in the process of maturing or attaining maturity.

Thus, we still have challenges with the way commercial models work for article publishing. Hence, many societies today are still evolving in the way they start to look at publishing or pricing for article publishing. And the more credible the platforms are, the more, reputed the platforms are.

The key issue we need to address is how to make article publishing more affordable for Indian researchers. As a nation, one of the most significant challenges we face is reducing the cost of publishing research articles. Additionally, we must support our growing community of young researchers. While they often have excellent ideas and produce valuable research, many are still learning how to publish high-quality articles that meet the rigorous standards of peer review and acceptance. Ensuring their work reaches a global audience requires significant effort and resources. These two challenges - affordability and capacity-building - are critical areas we must focus on to advance research in the country.

In what ways does open access accelerate collaborative research opportunities for Indian scholars with international counterparts? How can Indian institutions leverage open access to enhance their global reputation and attract more diverse research? 

The priority is to ensure that access to research articles becomes more equitable, removing the barriers imposed by commercial models. This would enable knowledge to circulate more freely, allowing researchers, regardless of financial constraints, to both access and contribute to the global body of knowledge. We believe this shift will significantly increase article consumption. For India, this is particularly timely, as the government’s strong focus on policy initiatives to promote research, the growing willingness of industry donors to fund research, and the emphasis on academics excelling in both teaching and research align perfectly with the advantages of open access. By fostering broader accessibility, open access can drive a surge in article consumption, benefiting the research ecosystem and accelerating innovation.

s we shift focus from institutes of eminence to tier-two and tier-three institutions, including those in rural and semi-urban areas, open access plays a pivotal role in promoting equitable access to research content. By removing barriers to scholarly material, open access empowers researchers in these regions to access valuable resources that were previously out of reach.

This expanded access is just the first step. Once researchers gain access to high-quality content, it fosters greater collaboration between content consumers and research publishers across the globe. This increased interaction not only facilitates knowledge sharing but also encourages cross-border partnerships and engagement. Open access, therefore, acts as a catalyst for building a more connected and collaborative global research community.

When considering article publishing, the same researchers who benefit from consuming open-access content now have the opportunity to share their work with a global audience. The entire world becomes their platform, enabling them to submit articles for peer review across international borders. As research topics from India increasingly address global challenges - ranging from AI and technology to healthcare and health sciences - the scope for international collaboration and recognition expands. This globalized nature of research allows Indian scholars to engage with diverse peer reviewers, ensuring their work meets international standards without geographical restrictions. This development is especially exciting as it enables researchers to transcend local boundaries, positioning them as truly global contributors in their respective fields. 

What specific areas of research in India have seen the most significant growth owing to open access?

There are a lot of data available publicly, today. And for India, in my view, clinical sciences, healthcare sciences, Artificial Intelligence, technology, pure sciences, social sciences and humanities, are the emerging areas where research is being conducted. Also, for us as a nation, these are exciting areas to be investing in, because these are truly some of those areas that the world will need to solve for, the problems that the world will need to solve for. And this is the area where research is also now becoming more and more ubiquitous.