On the 6th and 7th November the first AGRIS workshop on Open Access in Agricultural Science and Technology took place. The workshop was organized by a group of engaged Indian Agricultural Information Specialists and coordianted by Dr. Jai Haravu. The workshop was sponsored by ICRISAT and FAO.
23 participants discussed for two days the possibility of establishing open Access publishing and AGRIS OpenArchives in India. Experts from the Swaminathan Foundation (Subbiah Arunchalam), from the Indian Statistics Institute (ARD Prasad) and some maintainers of open Archives gave their contribution to the workshop. Important was the participation of representatives of many ICAR research institutes, especially of Prof. Rama RAO from NARMS.
The workshop had a lively discussion about the openAccess publishing paradigm and the possibility of its application in India. The workshop agreed on a roadmap for further actions and on some pilot open archives to be introduced.