India Research Tour 2025 launched to strengthen ethical and inclusive research Ecosystem

With an aim to promote integrity, inclusivity, and innovation in research, the third edition of India Research Tour 2025 was flagged off on Monday by Union Minister of State for Women and Child Development Savitri Thakur at the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), here.

Organised by Springer Nature in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, the India Research Tour is one of the country’s most ambitious outreach initiatives promoting integrity, inclusivity, and innovation in research. The tour will travel across 29 institutions in 15 cities and 7 states, focusing on Open Access, research integrity, diversity, inclusion, and ethical scholarship.

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This year’s tour will include visits to leading institutions such as IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, IIT Guwahati, Maulana Azad Medical College (New Delhi), IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, and IIM Bodh Gaya. The key pillars of India Research Tour 2025 include, promoting Open Access (OA) and advancing awareness of One Nation, One Subscription (ONOS), advancing Research Integrity and exploring the role of Artificial Intelligence in publishing, Promoting diversity and inclusion through initiatives such as Her Research, Our Future, and supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by democratizing access to knowledge.

Addressing the gathering, Savitri Thakur highlighted the Government of India’s unwavering commitment towards empowering women and children through knowledge, research, and innovation. She said that the India Research Tour is a vital platform for connecting with researchers across the country. “It supports women in research, strengthens ethics in scholarship, and ensures equitable access to opportunities and resources. Empowering women researchers and scholars is central to building an inclusive knowledge economy. By promoting ethical research practices and democratising access to knowledge, this initiative contributes directly to the vision of Viksit Bharat,” she said.

The Union minister further emphasised the Ministry’s focus on creating safe, supportive, and opportunity-rich environments for women scholars in universities and research institutions. She appreciated Springer Nature and ICSSR for ensuring that the Tour includes discussions on gender equality in research, ethical publication practices, and the Her Research, Our Future initiative, which aligns closely with the Ministry’s mission to mainstream women’s voices in academia and policy making.