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The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has formally launched an open access (OA) system for its scientific publications. ICRISAT has declared the Green OA Mandate in the Institute, thereby making available a digital, web-accessible repository of pre-prints of the scientific and scholarly publications emerging from ICRISAT’s research.

According to the registry on global OA initiatives maintained by the University of Southampton in the UK, ICRISAT is among the earliest agricultural research institute to declare the Green Mandate. The University of Southampton maintains the database which is called Roarmap.

Dr William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT, said that the OA mandate will further enhance the profile of the Institute through improved citations to published scientific work. “Our Institute’s Green OA Mandate is in keeping with our guiding principle of developing international public goods, and it will further demonstrate the public value, and social and economic relevance of ICRISAT’s research.”

The spiraling journal subscription costs have impacted the availability of critical research information to researchers across the globe. In the current global economic scenario, even institutions in developed countries find it difficult to meet increasing journal subscription costs.

Since the beginning of this decade, the open access movement has sprung up with roots in many developed countries. Champions of the OA movement believe that in spite of publisher-mandated copyright restrictions, authors of scientific and scholarly papers have the fullest freedom to share their findings with their peer community.

The OA repository of ICRISAT can be accessed at http://openaccess.icrisat.org.
Most of ICRISAT’s print publications can be accessed at http://books.icrisat.org

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