A New Science and Technology Policy Is In The Making

In News

The government proposed a new Science and Technology Policy.

In-Detail

• The government proposed an open science policy, to make scientific knowledge and data available to all in the draft New Science and Technology Policy.
• This will ensure that all the results and information generated by publicly funded research is freely accessible to everyone.
• The government will buy all the bulk subscriptions of all important scientific journals across the world.
• ●        Access to these journals will be made free to everyone.
• The proposals have been made in the Science, Technology and Innovation policy.
• The policy of ‘One Nation One Subscription’ for scientific journals will be a game-changer for the scientific community and researchers.
• The policy is aimed to buy access between 3,000 and 4,000 high-impact scientific journals.
• The government will spend Rs. 2, 000 crores to Rs. 3,000 crore on the bulk subscriptions every year.
• This is the first transformational move in the world towards making scientific knowledge available to all.
• The policy also proposes proactive steps to improve the quality of Indian journals and efforts to prevent the publication of fake documents.
• Libraries belonging to all the publicly funded institutions are proposed to make accessible to the general public with reasonable security protocols.
• This policy will replace the STI policy of 2013 to achieve technology self-reliance.
• This policy will help India to be among the top three scientific powerhouses of the world.
• The government and private expenditure on research and development will double every five years.
• The policy will emphasize promoting the goals of Atmanirbhar Bharat.
• It proposes to adopt ‘indigenous development of technology as well as technology indigenization.
• The policy says infrastructure can boost the local R&D capabilities.
• It can also reduce the imports in domestic sectors such as electronic hardware for railways, home appliances, transport, defense, cleantech, and in strategic sectors such as building a robust semiconductor ecosystem, etc.
• The policy also proposes for the establishment of a Strategic Technology Board which will bridge all strategic government departments and monitor and recommend technologies/

One Nation One Subscription

• This is proposed as part of a new Open Science Framework.
• This will provide free access to scientific data for all.
• The Ministry of Science and Technology proposed to set up Science, Technology and Innovation Observatory.
• This will serve as the central repository of all kinds of data generated from scientific research in the country.
• Under FAIR Terms- Fair, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable, all data and information related to research would be freely accessible.