Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU) in Kerala has signed an MoU with Cambridge University Press to help its faculty and PhD scholars get their articles published for free, thus helping researchers reach out to many people globally.

According to Sabu Thomas, Vice-Chancellor, MGU, one important factor that places an institution in a top spot globally is the number of publications that its researchers have got published in popular journals. "This is for the first time that a university is directly assisting researchers and faculties to get their articles published in international journals," he added.

Thomas stated that in the academic society, publishing articles in international journals is expensive. "They will charge article processing fees globally that may vary from USD or UK Pounds 1,500-2,000. That is around two lakh per article," said the VC. 

The collaboration between Cambridge University Press and MG University will see researchers and scholars get a complete waiver of the processing fee, along with a one-year free training programme for writing articles and publishing in international journals.

The VC said, "As part of the Read and Publish, Cambridge University Press will provide MG University with nearly 200 journals to publish articles under this programme. The researchers, PhD scholars and faculty members of the university will get a 100 per cent waiver of article processing charges for all articles published in Cambridge’s GOLD or HYBRID Open Access journals. Universities and researchers will get perpetual access to the content in a subscribed year." 

This initiative was organised by the Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) of MG University as part of their quality improvement for the academic fraternity.