Understanding the One Nation One Subscription Initiative

The One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) is a new initiative that has been launched by the Indian government. It will provide more academic resources to students and researchers from the country. It was approved by the Union Cabinet on November 25, 2024, and the work will begin on January 1, 2025. ₹6,000 crore are planned to be given until 2027 for this project.

What is ONOS?

ONOS is designed to make it easier to get access to scholarly research articles and journals. Instead of each institution paying separately for access to various academic journals, ONOS will provide a centralized subscription model. All government-run higher education institutions and research laboratories will have a central platform to access wide-ranging academic resources through one mode of payment.

Key Features of ONOS

• Unified Access. The initiative opens up access to over 13,000 journals by prominent international publishers such as Elsevier and Springer to more than 6,300 academic and research institutions.
• Cost Efficiency. ONOS will seek to save costs because of subscription consolidation compared to the existing, piecemeal model where each institution pays for its subscription.
• Expanded Access: ONOS focuses on Tier 2 and Tier 3 institutions to have equal accessibility to students from these areas.
• Support for Research: ONOS shall help smoothen out the cost of Article Processing Charges for authors who would like to print their works in open-access journals thus increasing research output.

Historical Background

The idea was founded from the Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy 2020, developed based on these core competencies about equitable access to knowledge. After series of consultations with various stakeholders from publishers to academic institutions, the initiative was further refined and now ready for implementation.

Implementation Challenges

A core committee, composed of representatives from the various ministries and educational bodies, oversees the ONOS deployment process. This core committee handles the planning and execution processes of the program with the publishers by negotiating terms.

Standpoint of ONOS

The ONOS project is, therefore, an important step toward democratizing access to educational resources in India. It seeks to level the playing field for all learners and researchers across institutions - irrespective of the financial capabilities of their institutes. Individual academic growth is thus supported, while the whole of the Indian research landscape is improved through this initiative.

With inputs from agencies
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