OPEN access refers to the unrestricted right to access, re-use and share scholarly research for academic development purposes. The major reason behind this phenomenon is the facilitation of research around the globe, so that communities living in underdeveloped and developing countries benefit from scholarly research findings for their own contextual use. In developed countries, researchers mainly rely on institutional subscriptions for such literature. But in developing countries such as Pakistan, researchers do not have access to much of the literature due to heavy subscription charges. This lack of access to quality journals is a major reason behind the research development disparity between developed and underdeveloped countries.

According to a recent study, researchers from eight countries of the developed world — mainly from the US, the UK, Germany and Japan — contribute 85 per cent of the most cited science research produced, while 163 counties (mostly from the developing world) only contribute 2.5pc of the cited output. And out of 3,000 indexed journals in Medline, only 2pc are contributed by developing countries. In a nutshell, the authors of the study find, nearly 80pc of the global population is contributing only 13pc of the 140,000 titles listed in Ulrich’s Directory of Scientific Serials.

Researchers from countries such as Pakis­tan and India rely mainly on personal relations to access quality research literature. Sources like personal emails to students and teachers working in Western research institutes are used to overcome the access barriers. There is a huge difference between citations from open access in the research output among these two regions: researchers from developing countries mostly cite from the open access articles, while researchers from developed countries predominately have citations from subscribed journals. Consequently, the reference lists of the research articles from developed countries are on average 6pc longer as compared to the research publications from developing countries. This not only impacts the quality of research produced, but also the implications of research on the rest of the society.

The HEC should provide dedicated funding for access to paid journals.

A wide range of research institutes, donor agencies and funding bodies currently have more than 700 open access policies globally. Research data in this particular field shows that almost 25pc of scholarly research content is accessible on the internet in one way or the other — but this also means that 75pc of the scholarly research content is not accessible to most. One has to occupy a privileged position within an institution in order to access subscription, or pay up. So it is a matter of great concern because a large portion of the stakeholders are those who do not have access to research content. Subscriptions, wh­e­­ther at an individual or institutional level, are expensive and unaffordable for many. As a result, there is a lack of impact of such a huge chunk of research studies carried out due to issues of access, usability and sharing.

There is a dire need to kick-start collaborative programmes between developed and underdeveloped countries, in order to facilitate research, funding, and offer subsidised or free subscriptions to overcome this problem. In the specific context of Pakistan, training and development activities should be carried out both at the Higher Education Com­m­i­ssion (HEC) level, as well as at the university level, to build the capacity of scholars about the effective use of digital resources.

HEC should have dedicated funding for universities to provide access to paid journals. HEC should also form a committee dedicated for foreign collaborations in research development, facilitating the publication of work of Pakistani scholars in foreign journals, and building a positive image of Pakistani scholars in the international community.

Funds should be allocated by the government for higher education, to create a better learning and research environment among Pakistani scholars. Regional technical trainings may be conducted by the HEC for scholars to increase awareness about open access so that they understand the available quality literature from open sources — at the very least. The open access movement should be supported both at government and university level. Funding for research scholars may be increased, as lack of funding is also a major constraint in research publication in top-notch journals.

Above all, a research-oriented culture should be promoted. Effective parameters should be taken to provide access of quality journals to scholars at their homes. Each school or department of a university should have a research journal publishing biannually or quarterly to promote the culture of research and effective control should be put to sustain the quality of research articles published in it.

Rana J. Asghar works at the Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services.

Abid Rehman is visiting faculty at NUST.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2019