Journal of Scientometric Res.

2020;9(2s):s1-s9
http://www.jscires.org IndiaLics Issue

Publication Trends in the Informal Sector

Innovation Research
Hemant Kumar
Centre for Studies in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, INDIA.

ABSTRACT
Innovation research, representing other than the formal sector, has gained
momentum in the last two decades and different terms like grassroots innovations,
frugal innovations, jugaad, inclusive innovations and informal sector innovations
are used. These key terms have specific and contextual meaning and represent
different sets of innovations that are different from its traditional or Schumpeterian
understanding of innovations. The Scopus and Google Scholar database suggest Correspondence
that since 2005, the number of publications has increased and focus is given on Hemant Kumar
publishing research on informal sector innovations. Further scientometric analysis
Centre for Studies in Science, Technology
of Scopus database on parameters of the subject area, document type, country
of publication, source journal and institutional affiliation is conducted. The results and Innovation Policy, Central
suggest that in the last one decade the relevance of such innovations have been University of Gujarat, Sector 29 campus,
recognised by academicians and policymakers alike and most of studies or cases Gandhinagar-382030, Gujarat, INDIA.
are coming from developing economies, especially India. This also suggests that E-mail: hemant@cug.ac.in
many government and non-government efforts have been made to identify the role
of informal sector innovations in developing economies in a major way.
Received: 22-07-2018
Keywords: Grassroots Innovations, Jugaad, Inclusive Innovations, Frugal Revised: 15-07-2019
Innovations, Informal Sector Innovations, Scientometrics. Accepted: 07-11-2019
DOI: 10.5530/jscires.9.2s.31

INTRODUCTION develop a better understanding of it from other perspectives.

In the last two decades, the informal sector innovation
research has caught the attention of academicians,
policymakers and enthusiasts alike. There are several terms,
often used interchangeably, such as grassroots innovations,
green innovations, inclusive innovations, frugal, informal
sector innovations and jugaad to denote innovations other
than the formal sector. However, their nature and meaning
are contextual and represent a diverse set of innovations. For
instance, grassroots innovation term is not very old. However,
it has been practised by many cultures for centuries under
different names.[1] Similarly, jugaad is used for innovations
both in the formal as well as informal sector innovations. The
informal sector, considered as one of the largest sectors for
employment generation and contributor to the gross domestic
product (GDP) in many economies, especially developing
countries, had a pessimistic understanding. This sector was
looked as unproductive and a hindrance for development in
the larger context.[2] Later on, it was realised that rather than
having a negative outlook of the informal sector, one should
Copyright
© The Author(s). 2020 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative
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licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction
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changes were made.
[1,2]
The recent trend in looking at this sector as a knowledge
generator and breeding ground for various forms of innovations
has attracted scholars to understand the context and relevance
of innovations coming out of the informal sector. Such
innovations are considered to be by, for and at the grassroots.
[3]
There are various interest groups, such as policymakers,
scholars and promoters of informal sector innovations, have
started looking into the innovations from the informal sector
and addressed them using various terms as mentioned above.
There are certain country or context-specific terms one can
find in the literature, for instance, Jua Kali in Kenya, Système
D in France, DIY in the USA, folklore innovations in China
and Gambiara in Brazil.[1] This has not only increased research
publications, but also funding has been pumped into it to tap
the potential to address various problems such as accessibility,
environmental, inclusivity and so forth. For instance, Honey
Bee Network (HBN), an informal movement, started in the
late 80s in India by Prof. Anil K Gupta and his associates to
tap the potential of knowledge in the informal sector.[4] Later,
this movement has been able to successfully institutionalise the
grassroots innovations by establishing Society for Research
and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions
(SRISTI) and National Innovations Foundation (NIF).[5] They
have attracted funds not only from civil society organisations,
but the Indian government has also helped them. The activities
of these organisations are to scout, document, give awards,

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 Kumar: Informal Sector Innovation Research Publication Trends
commercialise and file a patent for grassroots innovations
from India. This has also popularised the term through its
efforts in and outside India. Such activities have established
this field of knowledge and academic literature has been
noticeably developing and evolving worldwide on informal
sector innovations; however, conceptual ambiguities are still
there.[1]
In this context, this paper has purposively selected five
keywords, namely grassroots innovations, Jugaad, inclusive
innovations, frugal innovations and informal sector
innovations, to explore the advancements in the research in
this field. Defining these five keywords is out of the ambit of
this paper, as they bear different meaning as per the context in
which they are used.[6] Further, this will help students, those
who are planning to do research in this area, in identifying
their research themes. Therefore, the paper considers these
five keywords used by scholars to understand the publication
trend in the informal sector innovations across the globe by
using scientometric analysis.
The structure of the article is as follows: Literature review
is presented in Section 2 and Section 2.1 highlights the role
of scientometric analysis and 2.2 presents the discussion on
the key terms used for this research. Section 3 presents the
methodology and material used for this research. Results are
presented in Section 4 on various themes and a discussion on
results and conclusion is presented in Section 5.
Literature Review
Scientometric analysis
The scientometric analysis is a science of understanding
the uses of various keywords used in science and as a field
in academics. This also intends to understand the way and
methodologies using a field of knowledge. Scholars like R.
K. Merton, Derek J. de Solla Price and Eugene Garfield have
developed this field of enquiry.[7] Bornmann and Leydesdorff[8]
argue that in today’s context quality of research, funding and
prize opportunities are measured by quantitative techniques
like bibliometrics and scientometric analysis. These methods
are not only measures of individuals, but also of institutions
and countries. Such methods calculate the research
productivity of individuals, institutions and countries.[9] Such
productivity research considers all the possible sources of data
like journal publications, books, book chapters and conference
proceedings. Scholars have defined two perspectives, namely
normative and descriptive, to understand the progress of a
field of enquiry.[10] The normative approach in scientometric
analysis explores the norms and rules in the development of
a field. On the other hand, descriptive approach observes
the actual activities in the field of enquiry. This paper uses
the descriptive approach of analysis of the informal sector
innovation studies.
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Informal sector innovations: Keywords
The literature on innovation has evolved over a period of time
and captures the complexity, nuances and multidimensionality
of the concept of innovation.[11,12] However, a major part
of the literature developed in the context of innovation
pertains to the formal sector, which operates under, more or
less, clearly defined problem situations, incentives structures
and regulatory frameworks.[13] In contrast, informal sector
innovations operate in an informal setup, where neither the
problem situations nor incentive structure nor the regulatory
framework is well defined. These individual innovators
work in the informal setups, where their motivations, local
institutions and other actors become important factors in
shaping the trajectory of innovation.[8,13,14] In reality, these
innovations can be based on, both traditional knowledge
as well as modern technologies and adapt them to local
conditions[13] by people at the bottom of the pyramid.[3] There
are many factors responsible for making such innovations
a core component of the Indian innovations systems along
with similar concepts such as ‘grassroots innovations’, Jugaad,
frugal innovations, informal sector innovations and inclusive
innovations. However, as mentioned earlier, these concepts
are different from each other and Kumar and Bhaduri[1]
and Bhaduri[15] argue that they are different from each
other if we look at the ‘values’ generated by them in their
socio-economic context. Van Beers et al.[16] also suggest
that inclusive and frugal innovations are similar to certain
characteristics, but not necessarily all-inclusive innovations
are frugal or vice versa. Bhatti[17] defines frugal innovations
as ‘‘innovation which attempts to serve large bottom and
lower-middle-class population demands are termed as ‘frugal
innovation’ lies at the intersections of technology innovation,
institutional innovation and social innovation (p.5).’’ Thus,
frugal innovations are not only technological innovations,
but other innovations can be considered frugal. Prahalad and
Mashelkar[18] have also differentiated frugal innovations from
Jugaad by arguing that Jugaad is developing the alternative
and improvisations to deal with the scarce resources and
solving the complex problems. Moreover, they see Jugaad as
compromising the quality of products. Devi and Kumar[6]
reiterate that all ‘grassroots innovations’ can be frugal; however,
all frugal innovations cannot be grassroots innovations.
Mashelkar, President, The Global Research Alliance defines
inclusive innovation as “the knowledge creation, acquisition,
absorption and distribution efforts targeted directly at
meeting the needs of the low-income or the base-of-the-
pyramid (BoP) population. The focus of Inclusive Innovation
is on delivering high-performance products and services or
high experience at ultra-low cost to the people whose needs
are generally not addressed.” He further proposed a working
definition of inclusive innovation as “any innovation that leads
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 Kumar: Informal Sector Innovation Research Publication Trends
to  affordable access  of  quality goods and services  creating
livelihood opportunities for the excluded population, primarily
at the base of the pyramid and on a long-term  sustainable
basis  with a  significant outreach.»1 Thus, he is not only
focusing on innovation as output but also creating income
generation activities for people at the margins. Similarly,
Utz and Dahlman (2007) define inclusive innovation as
“innovation efforts that can help improve the productivity
and livelihoods of people in India’s vast informal economy.
[Such efforts can] benefit from harnessing collaborative efforts
of formal creation efforts for the poor (cited in p. 20).[19]”
Thus, collaborative efforts with poor and excluded groups are
important for making an innovation inclusive. The informal
sector innovation keyword is used by a few scholars in India
and Nigeria and they consider all innovations coming from
the informal sector and not for the informal sector.[1,20,21]
Thus, they consider grassroots innovations, jugaad and frugal
innovations generated in the informal sector as part of informal
sector innovations.
Therefore, despite the differences among these keywords, they
represent one or other kind of innovations in the informal
sector. Since, conceptual ambiguity still persists with all of
the selected keywords, the paper refrains from defining them.
Despite that, they are building up strong research themes and
scholars are exploring empirical evidence of such innovations
in various context. Thus, the scientometric analysis would help
in mapping different contexts of informal sector innovations
around the globe.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Data Source
Falagas et al.[22] have made a comparative analysis of various
scientific sources of information, namely PubMed, Scopus,
Web of Sciences and Google Scholar and suggest that each
of them has their strength and weakness. Therefore, for
this study, a descriptive scientometric analysis of the Scopus
database (available at https://www.scopus.com) is used for
analysing data on various parameters such as scholars, their
affiliations, country profile and so on. The paper also explores
Google Scholar (available at https://scholar.google.co.in/)
database to track the number of publications over the period
around these keywords, including citations and patents, as
Scopus has limited number of listed journals and there are
other forms of publications, which are not listed in it.
Keyword search
In a similar study, Hossain used the keyword “grassroots
[23]
innovation” and Hossain[24] “frugal innovations” and
1 http://www.theglobalresearchalliance.org/index.php/inclusive-innovation [cit-
ed 2018, Jul 18].
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
discussed various dimensions of their use in academic
literature. Furthermore, the results in Hossain[23] is focused
on grassroots innovations in the context of environmental
sciences. However, in this research, the search was made using
five keywords, often used interchangeably, namely frugal
innovations, grassroots innovations, inclusive innovations,
informal sector innovations and jugaad used in the context of
informal sector innovations. Although, their use and extent
are different from each other, which is discussed in the earlier
section.
Data analysis
Documents related to main journals in this field, publication
year, country profile, institutional affiliations and subject
area retrieved from the Scopus database. However, for the
publication year both, Scopus and Google Scholar, databases
were used for the simple reason that the Scopus database has
its limitations and only listed journals are displayed. Also, at
the beginning of any research area few publications, which
are not part of journal articles, are also available from Google
Scholar.
RESULTS
Publications timeline
Publication timeline has been searched on two sources i.e.
Scopus and Google Scholar for the simple reason that most of
the journals are not listed on the Scopus database. The result
shows that altogether 512 publications have been listed on
Scopus and around 11549 on Google Scholar since 1980s for
all the five keywords (Table 1).
In which ‘grassroots innovations’ and ‘frugal innovations’ are
most frequently used terms followed by ‘inclusive innovation’
and ‘jugaad’. Only five publications have been reported for
informal sector innovations. The reason could be that these
key terms have been defined in a broader manner and they
also include innovations from the formal sector. However,
these key terms have basic differences, as we discussed earlier,
among them. For instance, scholars from the UK consider
initiatives of the formal sector for grassroots communities
as ‘grassroots innovations.’ However, Indian scholars
Table 1: Publications database.
Source Scopus Google Scholars
Keyword
Grassroots Innovation 164 3241
Jugaad 54 2058
Inclusive Innovation 105 2942
Frugal Innovation 184 3258
Informal Sector Innovation 5 50
Author’s compilation (July 2018)
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 Kumar: Informal Sector Innovation Research Publication Trends
consider innovations in this category only by individuals
and communities in the informal sector. Similarly, the term
‘jugaad’, frugal and inclusive innovations have wider use, even
they are used in the context of formal sector innovations.
If we look at the Scopus database, frugal innovation is the most
frequently used term and most of the studies have focused on
innovations from the formal sector followed by grassroots
Figure 1: Keywords usage: Scopus (Scopus, July 2018).
innovations (Figure 1).
The Google Scholar database suggests that frugal innovation
is the most used term in comparison to other four keywords
(Figure 2). However, the first uses of term grassroots
innovations can be traced back to 1980s, where it was used in
the context of innovations in the field of education. Since then
the usage of this word has changed and now used in varied
context especially innovations by the grassroots communities
in India. The reason could be HBN has popularised the term
not only in India but worldwide through its various efforts. For
instance, the establishment of SRISTI in the early 1990s and
NIF in the year 2001 have provoked scholars to look into the
scope of such innovations for wider applicability. The initial
research on grassroots innovation by Bhaduri and Kumar[13]
has looked into the socio-economic context of grassroots
innovation and tried to understand innovators local context
and their motivation to come up with such innovations.
Perhaps this was the triggering point and one can find after
that sudden rise in publications by other scholars around the
theme. The later publications have explored other dimensions
of grassroots innovations such as diffusion dynamics,[14]
patenting,[20,25] grassroots innovation as movement,[4] lived
experiences of grassroots innovators[26] and so on. Until then,
the research on jugaad, frugal and inclusive were still rooted in
the formal sector innovations. They have been conceptualised
as how one can use innovations from the formal sector for the
poor and excluded people. In other words, in the initial phase,
they were conceptualised as ‘top-down model’ in contrast to
‘bottom-up model’ of grassroots innovations. The keyword
‘informal sector’ is still in a very nascent stage and a few
scholars from India are focusing on this key term. Thus, the
S4
Figure 2: Keywords usage: Google Scholar (Google Scholar, July 2018).
overall picture suggests that since 2010 the focus on informal
sector innovations has increased throughout the globe.
Journal type
The results of journals type suggest that most of the publication
are in different types of journals mostly interdisciplinary
in nature (Table 2). The topmost journals publishing on
grassroots innovations are related to environmental issues,
for instance, Global Environmental Change, Journal of Cleaner
Production and Energy Policy, which is also evident from
Mokhter.[23] Although, they are highlighting the social aspects
and not the scientific aspects of the environment.
The word jugaad got popularity in the field of management
as it is frequently used in the context of formal sector
business organisations. Therefore, most of the business and
management-related journals are publishing on this keyword.
However, there are a few journals from the field of medical
sciences have published on jugaad too. Inclusive innovation
has taken space in innovation-related journals and further
explain how the traditional sources of innovations were not
inclusive and this new concept has been incorporated in
the literature to make this field of analysis inclusive. Frugal
innovation-related research is published in all kinds of journals,
dominated by developmental aspects of it such as European
Journal of Development Research. This may be the reason that
most numbers of publications are there related to this keyword
in comparison to other four keywords. Informal sector
innovations keyword is less used and very few journals have
been reported in the results. Although, an interesting point
one can observe that not only innovation related journals like
African Journal of Science Technology Innovation and Development
(AJSTID) but science technology and society (STS) related
journals such as Technology in Society and Current Science
are paying attention to the publications on informal sector
innovations research. This may be due to the interdisciplinary
nature of research are happening around these keywords.
Another interesting aspect is that AJSTID is publishing with
keywords like ‘grassroots innovations’, ‘inclusive innovations’
and ‘informal sector innovations’ more in comparison to other
journals. This is perhaps due to the factor that AJSTID is
focusing more on African and Asian cases of innovations and
most of the authors published in this journal belong to these
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 Kumar: Informal Sector Innovation Research Publication Trends

Table 2: Top Journals publishing on informal sector innovations.

Grassroots Innovations Jugaad Inclusive Innovations Frugal Innovations Informal Sector
Innovations
Journal No. Journal No. Journal No. Journal No. Journal No.
Global 9 Asia Pacific Journal of 2 Innovation and 12 European Journal 9 African Journal of 2
Environmental Management Development of Development Science Technology
Change Research Innovation and
Development
Environmental 7 Contemporary South 2 African Journal of 5 Journal of Cleaner 6 Current Science 1
Innovation and Asia Science Technology Production
Societal Transitions Innovation and
Development
Journal of Cleaner 7 Economic and 2 Picmet 2016 Portland 4 Procedia CIRP 5 Geography Compass 1
Production Political Weekly International Conference
on Management of
Engineering and
Technology Technology
Management for Social
Innovation 
Working Paper 6 Indian Journal of 2 Universities Inclusive 4 Sustainability 5 Journal of World 1
Centre For Social Anaesthesia Development and Switzerland Intellectual Property
and Economic Social Innovation an
Research on International Perspective
The Global
Environment
African Journal 4 Journal of Indian 2 Advances in Intelligent 4 Globalization and 4
of Science Business Research Systems and Computing Health
Technology
Innovation and
Development
Local Environment 4 Promoting 2 European Journal of 3 Journal of Indian 4
Socio-Economic Development Research Business Research
Development
Through Business
Integration
Current Science 3 20th Americas 1 Technology in Society 3 Technology in 4
Conference on Society
Information Systems
Amcis 2014
Source: Scopus (July 2018)

geographical locations. Therefore, one may argue that these from social sciences streams. In that too grassroots and frugal
keywords have a contextual understanding. innovations are dominating the discourse.

Subject Area
Publication on the informal sector innovations are not limited
to social sciences and other fields of knowledge like arts,
humanities and natural sciences are also using these terms
(Figure 3). Again, this shows that interdisciplinary perspectives
are dominant around these keywords and such knowledge is
influencing other fields of knowledge and vice versa. Also,
the conceptual ambiguity around these keywords has helped
scholars to use them in diverse contexts and subject areas.
This also gives them the flexibility to define these concepts
according to the context in which scholars are looking for
such ideas. However, most of the publications are coming Figure 3: Keywords usage: Subject area (Scopus, July 2018).

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 Kumar: Informal Sector Innovation Research Publication Trends
Interestingly, natural sciences subjects, for instance,
pharmacology, veterinary, chemical sciences, physics and
mathematics, are also using these keywords frequently. This
may be due to the applicability of such innovations in the
diverse subject and possibly they explain activities happening
in other fields of knowledge. For instance, many grassroots
innovations in India are reported in the field of traditional
medicine, plant varieties, engineering and so on.
Also, the efforts by SRISTI and NIF to link grassroots
innovators with many technical institutions like Indian
Institute of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of
Management (IIMs) in India has given scope to the scholars to
work on these innovations from interdisciplinary perspectives.
Furthermore, scholars in the west have expanded the notion
of grassroots innovations to the innovations coming from
the formal sector and labs[4] for solving problems of poor and
excluded people. This has broadened the scope of publishing
on these keywords in diverse sets of subjects.
Document Type
The document type is another important search criterion and
Sigogneau­ (p.589)[27] argues that each document type has a
function in the production and dissemination of knowledge.
For instance, article publication presents original research
and review gives a synthesis of published research in a
field of knowledge. He further argues that for calculating
productivity, for a nation, in research Institute for Scientific
Information (ISI) has categorised twelve different types of
documents. Since this research is looking into a comparatively
new field of knowledge, it has considered all possible
document types results in the Scopus database. Further, these
document types may have different meanings and forms based
on the field of knowledge, concepts and language they are
using, journal structure and due to ISIS categories (p.591).
[27]
Thus, in this study, we found that most of the research
is published in the form of articles using all types of selected
keywords followed by book chapters (Figure 4). There are
111 articles published using grassroots innovations, 100 frugal
innovations, 58 inclusive and 28 ‘jugaad’. In terms of books
Figure 4: Keywords usage: Document type (Scopus, July 2018).
S6
publications four inclusive innovations, 3 each with grassroots
and frugal innovations and none for jugaad and informal sector
innovations have been found. However, there is one book by
Rojdou et al. on jugaad published in the year 2012, although,
this book is not listed in the Scopus database.
There is a significant number of book chapters with keywords
grassroots innovations (11), jugaad (8), inclusive innovations
(14) and frugal innovations (10) are published. Conference
papers also published with these keywords. These publications
suggest that scholars are taking interest in these areas of
research and a number of opportunities have been created
to understand these concepts by organising national and
international conferences around these themes. Furthermore,
such an analysis will open up new avenues to classify the
document types as this field of knowledge evolves.
Country Profile
The data on country profile suggests that research using
keyword ‘grassroots innovations’ are coming from the USA
(56), the UK (31) and India (23). Most of the studies in these
countries are focusing on cases of grassroots innovations are
from small or developing economies, where the informal
sector plays a major role in the economy. This also shows
that the informal sector is recognised for its different kind of
knowledge generation activities. In other words, the informal
sector is looked from an ‘optimistic’ viewpoint what Chen
(2007) suggests.
There are other smaller economies working on similar research
topics, however, their publications are smaller in number. The
keyword ‘jugaad’ is used mostly in India (19) and the UK (12)
followed by the USA (7), France (4) and Germany (4). The
reason could be that the origin of the word ‘jugaad’ can be
traced to Indian mythologies.[1] Inclusive innovation research
keyword is used mostly in the UK (19), The USA (10), the
Netherlands and South Africa (9) followed by India, Norway
and Canada (7) and Argentina (6). The keyword ‘frugal
innovation’ is most frequently used by India (31), the USA
(30) and the UK (24). The other countries like Germany (19),
Figure 5: Keywords usage: Country Profile (Scopus, July 2018)
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 Kumar: Informal Sector Innovation Research Publication Trends

Table 3: Top ten institutions publishing with these keywords.

Grassroots Innovation Jugaad Inclusive Innovation Frugal Innovation Informal Sector
Innovation
Institutions No. Institutions No. Institutions No. Institutions No. Institutions No.

University of East 20 Friedrich-Alexander- 2 Universiteit 8 University of 6 Central 3

Anglia, UK Universität Erlangen- Stellenbosc, South Cambridge, UK University of
Nürnberg, Germany Africa Gujarat, India
University of Sussex, 19 King Edward 2 Wageningen University 5 Panepistimion Patron, 6 Jawaharlal Nehru 2
UK Memorial Hospital and Research Centre, Greece University, India
India Netherlands
University of 7 The University of Lunds Universitet, 5 Imelda Hospital, 6 University of 1
Reading, UK California, Irvine, US Sweden Belgium Nigeria, Nigeria
Jawaharlal Nehru 5 Seth Gordhandas 2 Universidad Nacional 4 Aalto University, 6
University, India Sunderdas Medical de Quilmes, Argentina Finland
College, India
Indian Institute 4 Microsoft Research, 2 University of Sussex, 4 Ecole Centrale de 5
of Technology, US UK Nantes, France
Guwahati, India
Tellus Institute, US 4 Queen Mary, 2 DST-NRF Centre 3 Universitat Gottingen, 5
University of London, of Excellence in Germany
UK Scientometrics and
Science, South Africa
Tianjin University 4 University of Miami, 2 University of 3 Delft University 4
of Finance and US Manchester, UK of Technolog,
Economic, China Netherlands
Indian Institute 4 University of 2 Open University, UK 3 IBM Research, US 4
of Management Cambridg, UK
Ahmedabad, India
Central University 3 Tuljaram 1 University of Toronto, 3 Imperial College 4
of Gujarat, India Chaturchand College, Canada London, UK
India
Delft University 3 National Defense 1 Universidad de la 3 Queen’s University, 4
of Technology, Academy, India Republica, Uruguay Kingston, Canada
Netherlands
Source: Scopus (July 2018)

France (18), Finland (11), Belgium and the Netherlands (10)
have also contributed in a significant way (Figure 5 and 6).
The keyword ‘informal sector innovation’ is in its nascent stage
and only two countries namely India (4) and Nigeria (1) have
used it. However, if we look at the overall country profile, one
can sense that even smaller countries, especially from Asian,
African and South American continents, are contributing
to research with these keywords, although in a limited way.
Also, the publications dominated by western countries on
these keywords suggest that funding opportunities to conduct
research are more available in comparison to developing
economies. Thus, given the complexities around these
keywords, there is need to encourage institutions in smaller
and developing countries to focus on research on such
keywords as these economies are mostly dominated by the
informal sector and they have to identify and explore the
potential of such diverse and often neglected knowledge.

Institutional affiliation
The scientometric analysis is also a measure of the productivity
Figure 6: Country profile. of institutions engaged in a field of research. Table 3 reflects

Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020 S7

 Kumar: Informal Sector Innovation Research Publication Trends
upon the top ten institutions engaged in research on different
keywords in the informal sector innovation research. One
thing is clear that each research group in these institutions
focus their research on one keyword at a time.
The word grassroots innovations have highest publications
from the UK universities and Indian institutions are second
to that. With ‘jugaad’ keyword Germany, the UK, the USA
institutions are publishing more. Inclusive innovation
keyword is more used in South African, Swedish, Argentinian,
Canadian and Uruguay institutions. Publications are more
produced by the European institutions followed by USA
and Canada with the keyword ‘frugal innovation’. A few
private organisations, like Microsoft and IBM Research, are
also publishing with these keywords. The keyword informal
sector innovations are used by only an Indian university and
a Nigerian university. Further, Serenko et al.[9] point out
that research published in new discipline is dominated by
single-authored paper. However, these study results suggest
that most of the publications are not by single authors. They
are generally a collaborative project at various levels. For
instance, in UK scholars from more than one institution have
collaborated to research on the keywords. In India, scholars
have published together due to a PhD project, where authors
were Ph.D supervisor and student. Also, there is a paper where
co-authorship has been given to fourteen individuals as they
have contributed in various form in conceptualising the idea
of grassroots innovations in India (see for instance Gupta
et al.)[28] This could be due to the reason that the informal
sector is vast and scattered, especially in India and perhaps for
an individual, it is difficult to conduct the primary database
research alone. Therefore, despite a very challenging research
area, the informal sector is getting attention equally from
developed and developing economies both. Perhaps these
results are indicating that the informal sector is going to stay
and one must look at it from an ‘optimistic view’ what Chen[2]
argues for. Furthermore, Kumar and Bhaduri[1] argue that
informal sector is full of knowledge and time has come to
explore the knowledge of common people.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Scientometric analysis results have been obtained from
various fields such as publications year, journals, subject area,
document type, country and institutional profile working on
informal sector innovations. However, the only year-wise
publication was possible on both the data sources i.e., Scopus
and Google Scholar. Results in the Scopus show that before
the year 2000, only ‘inclusive innovation’ and ‘grassroots
innovations’ terms were used by the researchers and that too
in a limited way. Most of the uses started 2005 onwards and
other words like ‘jugaad’ and ‘frugal’ were used frequently.
The word ‘informal sector innovations’ is still not used by
S8
many and some scholars in India and Nigeria are using it.
Google Scholar results showed the uses of word grassroots
innovation since the 1980s and were used in the context of
innovations in the field of education. Further, it was in use
during the 1900s and one reference was found for the term
jugaad in 1995. However, like Scopus, other words use came
into regular practice after 2005. This shows that the focus
of scholars towards researching informal sector innovations
shifted after the year 2000 and in India, this may be due to the
HBN efforts and establishment of SRISTI and NIF and their
activities. At the global level, the paradigm shift happened
due to the importance of informal sector knowledge in the
context of solving environmental problems and where formal
sector have failed to address the issues of poor and excluded
people. Also, it was realised that the informal sector is going
to stay despite the speculation that it will vanish from all major
economies.  One can also observe a shift in the theories of
innovations from system to individual innovators like open
innovations and individual innovations.
The journals which are publishing on informal sector
innovations are interdisciplinary in nature and focusing on
economic and environmental impacts of such innovations.
The dominant area of research on these words is social
sciences. However, in natural sciences such as mathematics,
engineering, biochemical, material sciences and earth and
planetary sciences scholars have used these words.  If we
look at the document type, most of the publications are in
conferences proceedings and review. Later, there was a slight
increase in journal publications and but still, books are very
few in these areas of research. The result of a country profile
in the Scopus, suggests that most of the publications are
coming from western countries such as the United Kingdom
and the United States. From Asian countries, India is the
topmost publisher on these terms. Also, in the UK and the
USA, the word grassroots innovation is more used. However,
in India, the word frugal is used frequently. If we look at the
institutional affiliations, most of the technical institutions such
as IITs and IIMs are using the word jugaad and frugal. On the
other hand, social science-based institutions such as JNU is
using grassroots innovations and informal sector innovations
words more. Interestingly, in Canada, scholars are using only
inclusive innovations and no other keywords usage found in
the results.
Thus, the results obtained from the Scopus suggests that there
is an increase in the research on informal sector innovations
in the last one decade. Scholars are trying to understand these
innovations from various perspectives using different methods.
However, due to the limitation of Scopus, one cannot have a
comprehensive view of research in the non-western countries
on the informal sector innovations. Scholars in the African
and Asian countries are working on these areas in the informal
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Kumar: Informal Sector Innovation Research Publication Trends
sector as it is a dominant feature in these economies and one
must devise a robust mechanism, by providing funding and
developing institutional capabilities, to capture the research
trends in informal sector innovations in these continents
too. Also, this study will open new areas of research, such as
exploring collaboration among scholars and institutions on
these research themes and how different countries are looking
at innovations from the informal sector.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am thankful for the audiences, especially Shekhar Jain and
Saradindu Bhaduri, at The Fourth IndiaLICS International
Conference 2017, New Delhi and reviewers of the journal for
their valuable comments on the earlier version of the paper.
I am also thankful to the Central University of Gujarat for
providing me access to the Scopus database.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The author declare no conflict of interest.
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Journal of Scientometric Res. 2020;9(2s):s10-s19
http://www.jscires.org IndiaLics Issue

Open Science in Addressing Responsible Research

and Innovation: Evidence from India and other
Countries
Anup Kumar Das1,*, Bidyarthi Dutta2
1
Centre for Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, INDIA.
2
Department of Library and Information Science, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal, INDIA.

ABSTRACT
Correspondence
This paper highlights the brief background of the concept of Responsible Research
and Innovation (RRI). The RRI concept has some key issues, one of which is open Anup Kumar Das
access that brings forth the concept of Open Science. The global trend of Open Centre for Studies in Science Policy,
Science research is presented here on the basis of data obtained from Scopus, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
Web of Science and PubMed. The global Open Access movements got strengthened New Delhi-110067, INDIA.
after the release of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) public statement E-mail: anup_csp@jnu.ac.in
on February 14, 2002, supporting the principles relating to open access to the re-
search literature. The state of India in production and dissemination of open access Received: 19-09-2018
resources, in comparison with other BRICS nations is pointed out here. The Directory Revised: 07-12-2018
of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and the Directory of Open Access Repositories Accepted: 07-11-2019
(OpenDOAR) have recorded a significant number of open access journals and open
DOI: 10.5530/jscires.9.2s.32
access repositories from India, one of the best from the developing nations. However,
in other Open Science areas such as ensuring open research data and publishing
research publications with an explicit Open Licensing term, India needs to take the
lead in the developing world. The recent advancements in open science frameworks
in the world vis-à-vis the open science strategies and practices in India as compared
to other emerging economies are highlighted.
Keywords: Responsible Research and Innovation, Science Policy, RRI-Indian
context, Open Science, Open Access-India, BRICS Nations.

INTRODUCTION Framework Programme for Research and Technological

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) indicates an
integrated research and innovation process that encounters
effects and potential impacts on the environment and society.
By June 2014, there were at least a dozen international
research projects, most of them funded or co-funded by the
European Commission, that were involved in developing a
Responsible Research and Innovation governance framework.
[1]
The Leaflet of European Commission[2] declared in 2012,
“The Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of
the European Commission is determined to bridge the gap
between the scientific community and society at large. In 2001,
the «Science and Society» Action Plan was launched to set
out a common strategy to make a better connection between
science and European citizens. In 2007, under the Seventh
Copyright
© The Author(s). 2020 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/li-
censes/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in
any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the
source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes
were made.
Development (FP7), «Science and Society» became «Science
in Society (SiS)» with the primary objective to foster public
engagement and a sustained two-way dialogue between
science and civil society. Since 2010 the focus of SiS has
been to develop a concept responding to the aspirations and
ambitions of European citizens: a framework for Responsible
Research and Innovation (RRI).
The European Commission (EC) described RRI as a
framework that consisted of six Key Action Points:[2]
1. Engagement: It implies that societal challenges should
be framed by widely representative social, economic and
ethical concerns and common principles on the strength of
joint participation of all societal actors - researchers, indus-
try, policymakers and civil society.
2. Gender Equality: Addresses the underrepresentation of
women, indicating that human resources management
must be modernized and that the gender dimension should
be integrated into the research and innovation content.
3. Science Education: Faces the challenge to better equip fu-
ture researchers and other societal actors with the necessary

Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020 S10
 Das and Dutta: Role of Open Science in Addressing RRI
knowledge and tools to fully participate and take responsi-
bility in the research and innovation process.
4. Open Access: States that RRI must be both transparent and
accessible. Free online access should be given to the results
of publicly funded research (publications and data).
5. Ethics: Requires that research and innovation respect fun-
damental rights and the highest ethical standards to ensure
increased societal relevance and acceptability of research
and innovation outcomes.
6. Governance: Addresses the responsibility of policymakers
to prevent harmful or unethical developments in research
and innovation. The latter is a fundamental basis for the
development of the rest of the dimensions.[2]
Figure 1 indicates Open Access as an integral part of the
RRI Framework, as suggested in the Horizon 2020 strategy
documents. More recently in September 2018, eleven research
funders in Europe unveiled ‘Plan S’ to make all research
publications open access as soon as they are published.[3] The
Delhi Declaration on Open Access 2018 recommended similar
provision for the public-funded research outputs.[4] Open
science efforts are now accelerated to engage the citizens in
the research processes as well as to ensure public engagement
of the informed citizens. This paper addresses fourth point
i.e. open access in science information dissemination, or
open science. The state-of-the-art of the global open science
research along with its relevant facets are analysed here, for
instance, growth of open science research, the core countries
involved, the core journals and subject areas of open science
etc. The Horizon 2020 is the EU Research and Innovation
programme with nearly €80 billion of funding available
over seven years, viz., 2014 to 2020. The open access is
Figure 1: Open Access as an Element in RRI Framework.
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
being supported by major institutions such as the European
Commission, Wellcome Trust, Department of Biotechnology
(India), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (India)
and many academic bodies of various countries.
Brief Background of Responsible Research and
Innovation
According to Stilgoe[5] et al. “Responsible innovation is an idea
that is both old and new. Responsibility has always been an
important theme of research and innovation practice, although
how it has been framed has varied with time and place.
Francis Bacon’s imperative to support science ‘for the relief
of man’s estate’, the institutionalisation and professionalisation
of science from the 17th century onwards, Vannevar Bush’s
(1945) ‘Endless Frontier’, JD Bernal’s (1939) arguments for
science in the service of society and Michael Polanyi’s (1962)
‘Republic of Science’ counter-argument have all contained
particular notions of responsibility”.
The Responsibility, in a true sense, indicates some sort of
reliability or dependability. As Wikipedia[6] said, the “term RRI
was coined in Europe and the United States in the first decade
of the 21st century. Among the first authors who developed this
concept from 2003 onwards, were Hellstrom, Guston, Owen,
Robinson and others”.[6] But Research is an old and classical
concept of the society. The earliest recorded use of the term
dates back to the year 1577. Now, an interesting question
may instinctively arise, i.e., was the Research before the year
2003 held no Responsibility at all? At this juncture, let us recall
that the main glue functioning behind the amalgamation
of Responsibility and Research is its interactions with the
Society.[7] The Atomium European Institute[8] declared,
“Citizens have a right — and are expected — to be involved
in the crucial decisions of what their futures will look like and
how science and technology can contribute to its betterment.
The framework for Responsible Research and Innovation
(RRI) stresses the fact that grand societal challenges will have
a better chance of being successfully tackled if all societal
actors are fully engaged in the co-construction of innovative
solutions, products and service. Thus, RRI is being developed
to foster the creation of a research and innovation policy
driven by the needs of society and engaging all societal actors
via inclusive, participatory approaches.” As outlined by Nobel
Laureate and former Director General of CERN, Professor
Carlo Rubbia, the most severe scientific problems are those
responding to long-term issues, like cancer, climate change
or changing demographics. We need to critically assess how
society and the different stakeholders can be engaged in the
whole governance process to avoid the risk of investing only
in short-term solutions; as Michael Faraday tells us “electricity
was not invented by improving candles”.
S11
 Das and Dutta: Role of Open Science in Addressing RRI
Responsible Research and Innovation as a Movement
Keeping in mind the reciprocities between research and
society, the former gradually was shaped into a movement to
emphasize the impacts of science on society and the influences
of society on science. As Angelaki[9] mentioned in 2016,
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is a key action
of the “Science with and for Society” programme of Horizon
2020 (H2020). The European Commission defines RRI as “an
approach that anticipates and assesses potential implications
and societal expectations concerning research and innovation,
with the aim to foster the design of inclusive and sustainable
research and innovation”. This paper aims to contribute to
a better understanding of this increasingly topical concept
while focusing on one of its core features: Open Access. This
program highlighted the major role of Open Access within the
RRI framework. The responsibility issues are contemplated
with research functions at the crossroad when the society
marches towards democratization. As the democratization
radically demands sustainability issues, therefore RRI is the
key factor in today’s research scenario.
Open Science Movement
Why does science need to be open? Perhaps one of the most
burning issues of today’s society. In this context, let us recall
Swartz’s[10] famous quotation, “Information is Power”. But like
all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves.
The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published
over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being
digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations.
Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, elaborates the
importance of Open Science:[11] “To overcome the knowledge
divides, we need more cooperation across disciplines and
across borders to help governments develop more effective and
inclusive policies, North and South. International networks,
open data sources, co-creation of knowledge, open access to
publishing and software – these are all vital to achieving this.”
Since the birth of science journal in the year 1665, scientists
have been publishing papers without remuneration. Usually,
the scientists get royalties for their textbooks and monographs.
But generally, the papers are published in journals to bring
the scientists even more valuable rewards, i.e., the citation,
the time-stamp or other forms of impact. For more than 350
years, the papers contributed by authors are being distributed
in print journals, whose costs were covered by subscription
fees. The rise of internet ensured free distribution of scholarly
content to readers, a new environment in the academic world,
known as Open Access. It is interesting to note that the price of
journals began to escalate steeply as the internet was born. The
average price hike of a science journal was about four times in
the internet era compared to only one/two decades back. This
resulted in an access crisis while hardly any institution could
S12
access scholarly content particularly in developing nations
like India and South Asian countries. At this cross-point the
open access movement started, which eventually persuaded
80% of non-OA journals to let their authors deposit the peer-
reviewed versions of their work in OA repositories. Today,
open science movement is gathering high momentum. There
are several thousands of OA journals and repositories. Besides
the well-known subscribed bibliographic cum citation
databases like Scopus and Web of Science, there is also OA
database like PubMed or CiteSeerX. The notable feature is
that there are so many facets of open science publication and
dissemination. Canessa and Zennaro[12] pointed out six key
features that researchers need to know about open science.
Hippel and Krogh[13] described two prevalent models of
innovation in open science organization, i.e., the private
investment model and the collective action model and assessed
the role of open source software in implementing the same.
Gonzalez[14] highlighted licensing issues involved in open
science movement. Atkins[15] et al. discussed the role of open-
educational resources in open science movement. Ruth[16]
developed the concept of the Open Science Grid (OSG)
that provides a distributed facility where the Consortium
members provide guaranteed and opportunistic access to
shared computing and storage resources. Nosek[17] described
transparency, openness and reproducibility as vital features of
open science research. Boulton[18] described the open science
movement as an open enterprise.
As of 6th December, 2018, PubMed contains more than 29.1
million records. About 500,000 new records are added every
year. As of the same date, 13.1 million of PubMed’s records
are listed with their abstracts and 14.2 million articles have
links to full-text (of which 3.8 million articles are available,
full-text for free for any user). The WoS is a huge database,
which seriously lacks in OA indexing. By using the list, they
have provided there are only 726 open access journals in WoS.
The DOAJ is currently indexing 12,142 OA Journals. That
means WoS is indexing only about 7% of the OA content
available. Today, Scopus indexes 4153 OA journals. The total
number of journals covered by Scopus is more than 30,000.
Thus, the percentage of OA journals covered is around 14%.
Thus, compared to WoS, Scopus covers OA better.
Research in Open Science: Global Scenario
The open science movement gained momentum particularly
in recent years, i.e., since the beginning of the second decade of
the 21st Century, as also evident from Scopus, Web of Science
and PubMed. The gaining momentum of Open Science
concept endorses itself as a self-sufficient subject domain that
is also clear from these three bibliographic databases. We have
searched these databases by the search term “Open Science”
OR “Open Science Movement”. The results of the retrieved
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Das and Dutta: Role of Open Science in Addressing RRI

data are presented below. The growth pattern of global Core Countries
research on Open Science is presented in Figure 2. The list of top 20 countries is given in Table 4. The ranking
Growth of Literature here particularly for the top ten countries is nearly the same.
In Scopus’ list, India is absent, while secured 20th position in
It is interesting to note that Scopus records a maximum number
of Open Science research output followed by Web of Science WoS’ list. The topper country is the USA, followed by UK,
and PubMed. The PubMed records a minimum number of Germany, Canada, et al.
output though it is an open-access database, while the other
two are a subscription-based database. An exponential growth
of outputs is observed after 2010 for all the three databases.
The growth patterns of open science research at per three
databases, viz. WoS, Scopus and PubMed are hereby analysed
by non-linear regression method (Figure 3).
The open science growth of literature since 1989 to 2017, as
observed in Web of Science, Scopus and PubMed are hereby
fitted by regression method.[19] In all three databases, the best
fit curve found is exponential of the form Y = a*Exp(b*X),
where, a and b are constants, Y represents a number of
publications over the years (dependent variable) and X
represents years (independent variable. The values of a and b
for three databases are presented in Table 1.
It is observed from Figure 3 that Open Science growth was Figure 2: Growth of Literature in Open Science research (Observed).
started more of less since 2009 that touched the crest after 2015.
The sudden hike took place actually during the last three/ four
years. This growth pattern agrees with Price’ growth model.
[20]
The open science research is on the full swing right now,
which is signalled by the exponential growth pattern (Table 1).
In the context of long-term growth, Price suggested Logistic
curve, that is S-shaped to follow a saturation or decaying
phase (third phase) after the exponential growth phase. It is
thus clear that in the case of open science the third phase is yet
to come in future.

Core Parameters associated with Global Open Science

research.
Subject Areas Covered
The main subject domain attached with Open Science research
is computer sciences followed by information sciences, social Figure 3: Exponential curve fitting.
sciences, etc. No similarity is observed between the ranking
of the results from Scopus and Web of Science other than Table 1: Exponential Curve as Best–Fit Function.
the first one. However, the dominating subjects in Global S.No. Database Equation a b Residual Coefficient of
Open Science Research are computer sciences, library and sum of determination
information sciences, social sciences, physics, astronomy, squares (R2)
(RSS)
mathematics, etc. (Table 2)
1 Web of Y= 0.06 0.28 866.2 0.95
Core Journals Science 0.06*Exp(0.28*X)

The ranking of journals is also varying widely between two 2 Scopus Y= 0.37 0.23 744.5 0.98
0.37*Exp(0.23*X)
databases. The core journals are, however, include, eLife,
Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Research Policy, PLOS 3 PubMed Y= 0.002 0.38 319.8 0.96
0.002*Exp(0.38*X)
One, ACM International, etc. (Table 3)

Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020 S13
 Das and Dutta: Role of Open Science in Addressing RRI
Table 2: Major subject areas covered in Global Open Science research.
Research areas as per Web of Science Records (% age share)
Computer science 117 (15%)
Information science library science 101 (13%)
Psychology 98 (12%)
Science technology other topics 87 (11%)
Mathematical computational biology 87 (11%)
Life sciences biomedicine other topics 76 (9%)
Business economics 65 (8%)
Behavioral sciences 64 (8%)
Genetics heredity 56 (7%)
Environmental sciences ecology 55 (7%)
Accessing Open Science Online
Open Science promotes proliferation of open access (OA)
scholarly resources and open research data to be available in
the public domain and accessible through the Internet. The
research outcomes are often captured in research publications
and those publications are made available either through
Gold OA channel (e.g., open access journals) or the Green
OA channel (e.g., institutional or subject repositories and
data repositories, allowing self-archiving). Various research
institutions and funding agencies across the world have agreed
to support OA publications as outcomes from their funded
research projects and scholarships.
Table 5 shows the distribution of OA resources in BRICS
nations as recorded on different online directories. These
open science directories are maintained by various global
organizations, which verify credentials of OA resources
before enlisting. For example, ROAD is jointly managed by
UNESCO and ISSN (International Standard Serial Number
International Centre). ROAD data shows that 4489 OA
periodicals are published from BRICS nations, covering
14.71% of global OA periodicals (including scholarly journals,
as of 18th September 2018). The Directory of Open Access
Journals (DOAJ) maintains a searchable online database of
Gold OA journals. DOAJ data shows that 2004 OA journals
are published from BRICS nations, covering 16.5% of global
OA journals (as of 18th September 2018). These journals
provide an appropriate venue to publish in their respective
national language, in addition to English as a dominant
language of scientific discourses. The majority of these journals
follow Creative Commons open licensing. Open licensing is
the key enabler in the OA environment where the readers
can view the literature without any payment and copyright
restrictions. Some open licensing modes also allow readers
to share and re-use the scholarly information in their future
works. OpenDOAR data shows that 352 OA repositories are
S14
Research areas as per Scopus Records(%age share)
Computer science 352 (26%)
Social sciences 230 (17%)
Medicine 177 (13%)
Biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology 121 (9%)
Physics and astronomy 104 (8%)
Engineering 98 (7%)
Neuroscience 78 (6%)
Agricultural and biological sciences 68 (5%)
Immunology and microbiology 58 (4%)
Mathematics 52 (4%)
in operation from BRICS nations, covering 9.32% of global
OA repositories.
A research data repository facilitates archiving processed
research data, while an OA repository facilitates self-archiving
of publications in pre-print, post-print, or published
format. Table 5 also shows an open science indicator from
Re3Data.org, which is a global Registry of Research Data
Repositories. The registry covers research data repositories
from different academic disciplines. It presents repositories for
the permanent storage and access to data sets to researchers,
funding bodies, publishers and scholarly institutions. It aims
to promote a culture of sharing, increased access and better
visibility of research data. The website Re3Data.orgshows that
124 research data repositories are in operation from BRICS
nations, covering 5.66% of global data repositories. The Table
indicates that Brazil and India are most supportive of Open
Science causes, while other countries are catching up.
Declining of OA Journals on DOAJ Database
In June 2016, DOAJ announced the engagement of DOAJ
Ambassadors for streamlining inclusion of new OA journals
from the Global South, while they recruited 15 ambassadors
from 10 countries. Due to certain changes in the journals
inclusion policy as well as the inclusion process on DOAJ, OA
journals from India and few other countries started delisting.
Unfortunately, many scholarly journals published by the
science academies in India and other public funded institutions,
although publishing freely accessible online journals for many
years, had shown little interest in the inclusion of their journals
in this directory. Surprisingly, many of these Indian journals
are indexed on Scopus, Web of Science and other abstracting
and indexing databases, but they consciously are not taking
part of the DOAJ database. DOAJ Ambassadors in India are
still trying to figure out how OA journals published by the
public-funded institutions (including science academies in
India and CSIR-NISCAIR) could be included in the DOAJ
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Das and Dutta: Role of Open Science in Addressing RRI
Table 3: Core Journals in Open Science Literature.
Core Journals as per WoS
eLife
Research Policy
PLOS One
Gigascience
PeerJ
Information Wissenschaft Und Praxis
PLOS Biology
Journal of Technology Transfer
Abstracts of Papers of The American Chemical Society
Abstracts of Papers American Chemical Society
Science
Circulation Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes
Trials
Scientometrics
Scientific Data
database. Table 6 presents how Indian OA journals are
declined over the period of 14 months, while other BRICS
countries are improving their presence on DOAJ.
Celebration of Promotional Weeks for Open Science
The organizations engaged in promoting open science
movements globally in association with the research funding
are engaged with the stakeholders throughout the year. But
they also celebrate dedicated weeks locally across the world
to involve scientific workers and academic researchers in
the folds of open science practices. Three such promotional
OS weeks are namely, International Open Access Week,
International Open Education Week and International Data
Week. The respective week maintains a searchable database of
events and activities planned during the declared period.
• International Open Access Week |21-27 October 2019|
Everywhere [Openaccessweek.org]: Open Access Week
is an annual scholarly communication event focusing
on open access and related topics. It takes place globally
during the last full week of October in a multitude of
locations both on- and offline. Typical activities include
talks, seminars, symposia, or the announcement of open
access mandates or other milestones in open access.
• International Open Education Week | 4-8 March
2019 | Everywhere [Openeducationweek.org]: Open
Education Week is a celebration of the global Open
Education Movement. Its goal is to raise awareness about
the movement and its impact on teaching and learning
worldwide.
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
Frequency Core Journals as per Scopus Frequency
30 Journal of Physics Conference Series 68
16 eLife 30
9 ACM International Conference Proceeding Series 17
9 Research Policy 16
7 Communications In Computer And Information Science 15
7 F1000research 15
6 Lecture Notes in Computer Science Including Subseries 15
Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes
in Bioinformatics
6 Procedia Computer Science 13
6 Journal of Science Communication 10
6 CEUR Workshop Proceedings 9
5 Liber Quarterly 9
5 PLOS One 9
4 Gigascience 8
4 PeerJ 7
4 Behavior Research Methods 6
• International Data Week | 5-8 November 2018 |
[Internationaldataweek.org]: The theme of IDW 2017
was “From Big Data to Open Data: Mobilising the Data
Revolution”, while IDW 2018 theme is “Digital Frontiers
of Global Science”. IDW brings together data scientists,
researchers, industry leaders, entrepreneurs, policy makers
and data stewards to explore how best to exploit the data
revolution to improve our knowledge and benefit society
through data-driven research and innovation.
Global Collaborative Projects in Open Science
This section records some of the significant OS projects
implemented in the Global South, while many international
organizations are collaborating with the national and local
scientific institutions for rolling out open science platforms for
the benefits of the scientists and researchers in the respective
region or the country.
• Journals Online (JOLs) Project Managed by INASP:
INASP (International Network for the Availability of
Scientific Publications), established by the International
Council for Science (ICSU) in 1992, is managing JOL
projects as indicated in Figure 4.
• Following JOL projects are rolling out country-specific
online platforms for the scientific journals in South Asia:
• BanglaJOL[Banglajol.info]: is managed by the Editing
and Publication Association of Bangladesh (EPAB) and
the Bangladesh Academy of Science (BAS). Presently it
S15
 Das and Dutta: Role of Open Science in Addressing RRI

Table 4: Core Countries in Open Science Literature. Table 5: Open Science Proliferation in BRICS Nations.

Countries as per Records (% Countries as per Records (% Open No. of items No. of items No. of items No. of items
Web of Science age share) Scopus age share) Science on Directory on Directory on Directory on Registry
USA 267 (33%) United States 463 (36%) Channel/ of Open of Open of Open of Research
Country Access Access Access Data
England 102 (13%) United Kingdom 167 (13%) Scholarly Journals Repositories Repositories
Germany 62 (8%) Germany 108 (8%) Resources (DOAJ) (OpenDOAR) (RE3Data.
(ROAD) org)
Canada 54 (7%) Canada 59 (5%)
Brazil 1259 1280 99 8
Australia 36 (4%) Italy 56 (4%) Russia 685 269 31 22
Italy 34 (4%) Netherlands 52 (4%) India 2361 253 81 48
Netherlands 33 (4%) France 50 (4%) China 39 116 102 38
France 32 (4%) Switzerland 45 (4%) South 145 86 39 8
Africa
UK other than 31 (4%) Australia 44 (3%)
England Total from 4489 2004 352 124
BRICS (14.71%) (16.5%) (9.32%) (5.66%)
Switzerland 28 (3%) Spain 40 (3%)
Nations
Belgium 21 (3%) Japan 31 (2%)
Global 30514 12142 3775 2191
Spain 18 (2%) Belgium 28 (2%) Total
Japan 17 (2%) Finland 23 (2%) [Data as on 18th September 2018]
Sweden 14 (2%) Austria 22 (2%)
Scotland 14 (2%) Denmark 17 (1%)
Norway 12 (1%) Norway 17 (1%) Global Open Research Data Initiatives
Denmark 12 (1%) Sweden 16 (1%) GODAN.info (Global Open Data for Agriculture
Peoples R China 10 (1%) Poland 14 (1%) and Nutrition): It aims at challenging global poverty
Austria 9 (1%) Greece 13 (1%) and promoting food security through opening up data in
India 7 (1%) China 12 (1%)
agriculture and nutrition for everyone. GODAN is a rapidly
growing network of over 940 partners from government,
international and private sector organizations all committed
covers 140 Journals, while about 18,882 Full Text (PDF) to making data relevant to agriculture and nutrition available,
articles are made available. accessible and usable worldwide. It published two booklets
on success stories on open data for agriculture and nutrition
• SLJOL [Sljol.info]: is managed by University of
covering about 30 success stories from the Global South
Colombo and the National Science Foundation of Sri
(Godan.info/resources/success-stories).
Lanka. Presently it covers 73 Journals, while about 8196
Full Text (PDF) articles are made available. Advocacy for Open Science: Recent Success Stories from
• NepJOL[Nepjol.info]:is managed by Tribhuvan India
University Central Library (TUCL).Presently it covers In India, a scientific community was emerged in recent
118 Journals, while about 11,704 Full Text (PDF) articles time to support the open science movement in the country.
are made available. This community is formally known as ‘Open Access India
(OAI),’ which maintains its website and social media profiles
• SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online): SciELO
for promoting principles and practices of OA to scientific
started in Brazil in 1997 as a partnership among FAPESP
workers and academic researchers in India and South Asia.
(the State of São Paulo Science Foundation) and BIREME
Its social media accounts have been outreaching to more than
(the Latin America and Caribbean Center on Health
11,000 determined followers. OAI maintains Twitter handle
Sciences Information), a center of the Pan American
@OAIndia. OAI is advocating proliferation of national/
Health Organization (PAHO/WHO). Presently it covers
institutional OA platforms and OA policies. Some of the OA
1,447 journals, while about 49,910 journal issues and
platforms and policies unfolded in recent time in India include
713,987 articles are made available (as on 10th October
the following:
2017). SciELO country collections include contributions
from 14 Latin America and the Caribbean countries, In 2011, Shodhganga: A Reservoir of Indian Theses was launched
viz. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa by INFLIBNET Centre, to serve the mandates of the UGC
Rica, Cuba, Spain, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, Notification (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award
Uruguay and Venezuela. of MPhil/Ph.D Degree, Regulation, 2009) dated 1 June 2009,

S16 Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Das and Dutta: Role of Open Science in Addressing RRI

Table 6: Open Access Journals in BRICS Nations on DOAJ.

No. of OA No. of OA Status Difference

Journals as on Journals as on
25-08-2016 10-10-2017
Brazil 876 1081 Increase +23.4%
Russia 155 186 Increase +20%
India 345 198 Decrease (-)57.39%
China 48 102 Increase +112.5%
South 60 63 Increase +5%
Africa
BRICS 1484 1630 Increase +9.84%
Total
Global 9188 10213 Increase +11.15%
Total
[Data as on 10th October 2017]
Figure 4: INASP-supported Journals Online (JOL) Projects.

to facilitate open access to Indian theses and dissertations for
global dissemination to the academic community worldwide.
In December 2014, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT)
and the  Department of Science and Technology (DST),
Government of India had jointly adopted the  DST/DBT
Open Access Policy. In March 2015, UNESCO and CEMCA
jointly launched an Open Access Curriculum for Researchers and
an Open Access Curriculum for Library Schools.[21]
Shodhganga (Shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in): As a reservoir of
Indian theses, Shodhganga fulfills the mandates of the UGC
Notification (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award
of M.Phil. / Ph.D Degree, Regulation, 2016) dated 5th May
2016. It presently covers 203,400+ theses and dissertations
from 355+ universities.
ICSSR Data Service (ICSSRDataService.in): It is the
culmination of the signing of Memorandum of Understanding
(MoU) between the Indian Council of Social Science
Research (ICSSR) and Ministry of Statistics and Programme
Implementation (MoSPI). The MoU provides for setting-
up of “ICSSR Data Service: Social Science Data Repository”
and host NSS and ASI datasets generated by MoSPI. This
service aims at providing seamless and integrated access
to a wide range of datasets generated by the MoSPI, Social
Science Institutions under direct purview of ICSSR and other
Government organizations, to researchers who are looking
for high quality social and economic research datasets; serving
as a national data service for promoting powerful research
environment through sharing and reuse of data among social
science community in India; acquiring, processing, organizing,
preserving and hosting research data and its metadata along
with ETL (extract, transform and load) facilities of raw
data in social sciences and related domains collected from
diverse sources for easy sharing and access; facilitating online
submission, access, search, browse, discovery, conversion,
analysis and visualization of data through intuitive interfaces;
imparting training and spread awareness about benefits of data
sharing and reuse amongst social science research community
in India; and interacting, cooperating and collaborating with
other national and international data services and repositories
for data and resource sharing and improved management of
data services.
Self-Archiving of Scientific Data in Data Repositories
The scientific communities are aided with different global
online platforms for self-archiving open research data after
fully or partially completion of their respective research
studies. Some of the popular platforms are briefly mentioned
here.
• Figshare (Figshare.com): It securely stores and manages
your research outputs in the cloud, or makes them openly
available and citable (with a DOI) for free. It helps in
fulfilling the research data management (RDM) policy of
many research institutions and scientific journals.
• Dryad (DataDryad.org): It is a curated repository
that makes the data underlying scientific publications
discoverable, freely reusable and citable. This portal also
helps in fulfilling the research data management (RDM)
policy of many research institutions and scientific journals.
• Dataverse.org (Dataverse Project): This site provides
a web application for sharing, citing, analyzing and
preserving research data, created by Institute for
Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) at Harvard University,
in the United States. This portal also helps in fulfilling
the research data management (RDM) policy of many
research institutions and scientific societies.
• DataCite.org: It is a leading global non-profit
organisation that provides persistent identifiers (DOIs) for
research data. Its goal is to help the research community
to locate, identify and cite research data with confidence.

Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020 S17
 Das and Dutta: Role of Open Science in Addressing RRI
It is a member-based organization that helps make data
and other research outputs more accessible by developing/
supporting methods to locate and cite them.
CONCLUSION
This paper highlights the brief background of the concept
of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). The RRI
framework has six key elements, one of which is Open
Access. This key element brings forth the concept of Open
Science. Today, the idea Open Science itself bloomed as an
individual subject domain in the universe of knowledge. The
Global trend of Open Science research is presented here by
data obtained from Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed. It
shows an overall growth of Open Science initiatives in the
BRICS nations. In some areas, BRICS countries have been
stagnated and could not reach the mark of global 10% share.
The advocacy from the scientific and professional societies
needs to be strengthened to overcome the stagnation. Some of
the takeaway points and recommendations from this paper are
shown in the bullet points for the easy grasp of the situations by
the targeted stakeholders of local open science movement. A
sustained Advocacy is required to pledge to use OA resources
as users and authors; to encourage researchers to share their
research data and publish OA publications and to introduce
Research Data Literacy programmes for the researchers and
research scientists.
It is expected that research outcomes of the public funded
research be made available through the Open Access
publications with open licensing. Archiving of research data
from public funded research in open data repositories and
research journals maintained by the public-funded institutions
need to be encouraged. Journals published by the public-
funded institutions usually don’t have any APC for publishing.
There is a need to have a cross-country collaboration between
the research academies and research funders in developing
countries (i.e., the Global South) to curb the menace of
predatory OA publishers and journals. The menace of
plagiarism also needs to address. There is a need to make use
of OA knowledge repositories/open data repositories, both at
the institutional and funders’ level and also subject-specific
OA repositories (e.g., AgriXiv for agricultural research
literature, or IndiaRxiv - Preprints Server for India). There
is a need to establish cross-country formal linkages in the
Global South for mutual learning from the best practices/
success stories in open science initiatives. A cross-country
collaboration between the national science academies in the
Global South for the proliferation of open research data/ open
science initiatives, OA journals/ publications, with no or very
nominal article process charges (APC). A sustained open
access movement in the Global South would ensure research
funders show their commitments to cover APC for funded
S18
research. Not many international collaborative studies in the
areas of RRI have been initiated or taking place amongst the
countries in the Global South. A cross-country collaboration
between the research academies and research funders in the
Global South will also ensure reuse of published open research
data. An integrated approach to open science is, thus, required
to support the activities towards achieving the whole of RRI
Framework and also the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This paper was presented in the 4th IndiaLICS International
Conference 2017 on Innovation for Sustainable Development:
Perspectives, Policies and Practices in South Asia, during
2-4 November 2017 at New Delhi, India. The Authors are
thankful to the Session Chair, discussants and editors of the
Special Issue for their valuable comments.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
ABBREVIATIONS
APC: Article Process Charge; BOAI: Budapest Open Access
Initiative; BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa;
DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals; GODAN: Global
Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition; OA: Open Access;
OpenDOAR: Directory of Open Access Repositories; RRI:
Responsible Research and Innovation; SDGs: Sustainable
Development Goals.
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http://www.jscires.org IndiaLics Issue

Bilateral S&T Organisation as an Innovation

Intermediary: Case Study of Indo-French Cell for
Water Sciences
Shilpa1, Sujit Bhattacharya2,*
1
Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research, CSIR-National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies, New Delhi, INDIA.
2
CSIR-National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies; Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research, CSIR-NISTADS Campus, New Delhi, INDIA.

ABSTRACT
Different theoretical models and empirical studies increasingly highlight the importance
of networks and strategic linkages in research and innovation and commericalisation
process. This has motivated policy action at different levels for creation of organisations
that can facilitate the varied types of networks and linkages among the actors in the
innovation system. These organisations are expected to perform various types of
Correspondence
activities that bridge user needs and supply side, skill and human resources, financial
support, business and innovation strategy, knowledge about new technology and Sujit Bhattacharya
in implementation. These varied types of organisations now are defined under CSIR-National Institute of Science
‘Innovation intermediary’. Innovation intermediary is contextualised within the national, Technology and Development Studies,
regional or sector innovation systems. These systems are influenced by global Pusa Campus, K. S. Krishnan Marg,
innovation networks, production and innovation value chains and through varied New Delhi-110012, INDIA.
types of formal and informal linkages. One of the ways a country develops formal Email id: sujit_academic@yahoo.com
linakges with other countries are through bilateral organisations. Bilateral S&T organ-
isations is generally seen as a long term strategic partnership between countries that Received: 14-10-2018
can positively contribute towards strengthening innovation ecosystem of each of the
Revised: 14-12-2018
partnering countries. Can the innovation intermediary thesis help us to understand
the bilateral organisations in this context? Or in other words, can a bilateral S&T Accepted: 28-08-2019
organisation be seen as an innovation intermediary between two partnering countries? DOI: 10.5530/jscires.9.2s.33
The paper investigates this proposition by examining the influence of Indo-French
Cell for Water Sciences (IFCWS) in strengthening the water innovation ecosystem of
the two countries namely India and France. A singular case study can be too limited
to draw any strong conclusion. However, within this limitation we argue that this study
can be useful for policy makers in looking at bilateral organisations as an innovation
intermediary between two countries and for innovation scholars to examine this
organization more deeply within innovation systems studies.

Keywords: Innovation, System of Innovation, Innovation Intermediary, Indo-French

Cooperation, Bilateral S&T Organisation, Water Sciences.

INTRODUCTION policy makers own process of experimentation and learning.[3]

Innovation as a key determinant of competitiveness, long term
economic growth and development is being increasingly
accepted by policy makers.[1,2] As a consequence of this accepted
rationale, in policy interventions of many countries at different
levels (national, regional or sectoral) the focus is placed
explicitly on promoting innovation. Policy interventions are
influenced by theories/models and empirical studies and in
Copyright
© The Author(s). 2020 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/li-
censes/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in
any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the
source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes
were made.
Different socio-economic conditions and technological
capability influences policy makers own process of learning
and experimentation and leads to difference in ‘policy mixes’/
policy interventions in different countries. As Laranja et al.[4]
argue, theories are seldom directly taken by the policy makers
and transformed into policy rationale. In spite of various
competing theories which influence specific policy rationale,
System of Innovation (SI) perspective has emerged as a domi-
nant influence in policy articulation in many countries.[5]
The core element of the SI approach is that (a) national
systems differs in terms of specilisation in production, trade
and knowledge[6,7] (b) elements of knowledge are important
for innovation performance and are localized and not easily
moved from one place to another and (c) importance of

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 Shilpa and Bhattacharya.: Bilateral S&T Organisation as an Innovation Intermediary: Case Study of Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences

interactions and relationships; relationships seen as carriers of Table 1: Renewable Internal Freshwater Resources.
knowledge and interactions as processes where new knowledge 2014 (total billion Region/country 2014 (per % change
is produced and diffused.[8,9] A particular aspect of SI framework cu m) capita cu m) since 1962
that has influenced policy making in many countries is its 13,868 LAC 22,162 −62 ↓
emphasis on the interaction between different system actors 5,668 North America 15,991 −42 ↓
(firms, research and educational institutes) in fostering inno- 10,466 OECD Members 8,222 −37 ↓
vation and need for creating and developing institutions that 42,801 World 5,925 −55 ↓
can facilitate this interaction process. This has directed attention 1,505 EU 2,960 −16 ↓
towards creating institutions that can help overcome barriers 1,982 South Asia 1,152 −66 ↓
for developing linkages among different actors and can 114 Arab world 296 −78
facilitate interactions. In this context, research and innovation 2,813 China 2,062 −51
intermediaries are being increasingly discussed and are primarily 1,446 India 1,116 −64
seen as an institution that can facilitate this process.[10] Studies
Source: Constructed from World data bank
of different entities of this type highlight the evolution of the
role and functions of research and innovation intermediary.[11] highlights the scarcity of water resources, the dependence of
particularly their involvement in co-creating knowledge and energy and food sectors’ on water and increasingly focusses on
innovation. water resource management, ecosystem protection and water
supply and sanitation as critical for sustainable development.
In line with this, the aim of this paper is to examine the propo-
This itself makes the study significant to examine a bilateral instituion
sition whether bilateral S&T organisations working at interface of
working in this important area and how it makes an impact.
two nations can play a role of innovation intermediary for strength-
ening the national innovation ecosystem of partnering countries. Theoretical Background
We investigate this proposition by examining a bilateral Indo-
French laboratory in Water Sciences; the Indo-French Cell This study applies Sectoral System of Innovation (SSI) frame-
for Water Sciences (IFCWS). Sectoral system of innovation is work to study the key factors, concepts, or variables and the
used as a conceptual framework, the rationale for taking this presumed relationships among them for understanding the
as a framework is argued later in this paper. Water sciences is IFCWS role in influencing Water network. Borrowing from
an important area of concern for both the nations (India and Edquist et al.[13] The Sectoral System of Innovation may be
France) and they have retained scientific and technological defined as a collection of activites organised around a common
research in this area on priority which is reflected from their technological or knowledge base in which individual enter-
policy framework. prises are likely to be either actual or potential competitors
with one another. SSI is embedded within the System of
Water is one of the biggest challenges of 21st century1. It is Innovation (SI) conceptual framework which implies that the
a sector where ‘return to investment’ is not defined strictly systems of concepts, assumptions, expectations and beliefs of
in economic terms but defined more in terms of addressing this approach also defines sectoral system framework. SI can
developmental challenges. By 2050, the world’s population is be distinguished by the boundries of the systems: National,
expected to become 9 billion and it is estimated that among Regional, Technological and Sectoral system. Sectoral system
various other consequences of this growth one key impact is distinguished by the boundaries of a sector; however like
will be on water; the need for water is expected to increase all the other system there is overlapping between the different
by 50 percent. A study by OECD[12] estimates that about sectors and also embeds within the national and regional
1.5 billion people are living in the areas seriously affected by
boundaries. Thus while they (national, regional, technological
water scarcity and this number will increase to almost 4 billion
and sectoral system) emphasize different dimensions of the
by 2050. Table 1 provides some statistics on the present fresh-
system, they share a common conceptual framework and are
water resources in different regions across the world.
strongly interrelated.
The above Table highlights the decreasing fresh water
Malerba[14] defines sectoral system of innovation as “A sectoral
resources globally. This decline is more visible in emerging
system of innovation and production is a set of new and
countries and in the Arab regions. Apart from this there are
established products for specific uses and the set of agents
number of other issues associated with this sector like food
carrying out market and non-market interactions for the
scarcity, pollution and climate change. The water-food-
creation, production and sale of those products. A sectoral
energy are interlinked and is being seen as central to sustainable
system has a knowledge base, technologies, inputs and an
development. As sustainable development concern emerge, it
existing, emergent and potential demand. The agents
1 http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/ composing the sectoral system are organizations and individuals

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 Shilpa and Bhattacharya.: Bilateral S&T Organisation as an Innovation Intermediary: Case Study of Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences
(e.g. consumers, entrepreneurs, scientists)”. This notion of
sectoral system places emphasis on the structure of the system
in terms of products, agents, knowledge and technologies and
on its dynamics and transformation. In broader terms, one
could say that a sectoral system is a collective emergent
outcome of the interaction and co-evolution of its various
elements and system as well.
Actors remain similar across and within these different systems
and include individuals, firms, research institutes, financial
institutions and universities etc. However, each system tends
to co-ordinate the activities of these agents in different ways
and the spatial boundaries of these SI differentiates them.
System of Innovation is also significantly influenced by
evolutionary theory[15] which argues that innovation is a never
ending process i.e. novelties are introduced on continual
basis and present developments are also based in prior activities.
Path dependency is an important concept emphasized by
evolutionary theory which primarily implies that every
system has a memory and it influences the development of a
system.[16]
Traditional SI analysis was primarily based on examining the
structure of the system of innovation. This is regarded as a
static mode of analysis.[17] SI framework has evolved to address
the complexity and dynamics of the innovation/innovation
process. Rickne[18] and Liu and White[19] provides a useful
delineation to capture the functions that define the performance
of a system. Johnson and Jacobsson,[20] Edquist,[21] Hekkert
et al.[17] among others have enriched this delineation by
arguing that SI can be analysed by examining how the
different functions have been served by different actors in the
system. Table 2 underscore the key functions of SI based on
synthesis of the above research.
Table 2: Functions of System of Innovation.
Function Description
Knowledge development and Creation of new knowledge and facilitation of
diffusion information and knowledge exchange
Entrepreneurship Creation of new business
Infrastructure creation Development and maintenance of the
infrastructure in the system
Resource mobilization Building and attraction of resources relevant
to system
Guidance Direct attention of internal and external
actors towards specific problems and growth
opportunities
Market identification and Identification of markets and stimulation of
formation the formation of local markets
Legitimation Creation and building understanding,
support and legitimacy for the system.
Facilitation/ creation of Identification and utilization of synergies
synergies within the system.
Source: Adopted from Rickne 2000;[18] Johnson and Jacobson 2003;[20] Edquist
2005;[21] Hekkert et al. 2007.[17]
S22
The importance of the functions depends on the boundary
of the system as well as the perspective of analysis. Technical
standards, for example play an important role in some of the
sectoral system of innovation like nanotechnology and may
not be that important in others. The SI approach points out
that markets are not the only actors in a country’s economic
development.[22] Thus along with ‘market failure’, this frame-
work considers broader set of failures (system failures) to be
taken into account for policy intervention. The premise is that
there are other actors besides markets that can lead to failures.
Borrowing from Woolthius et al.[23] the causality of ‘System
failures’ happening can be attributed to infrastructure failures
and/or institutional failures and/or network failures and/or
capability failures. Thus functions that SI is expected to
perform can be possible if ‘System failures’ do not happen.
One of the major argument of SI is that institutions need to
be created and should evolve with the changing environment
to address system failure. This framework particularly calls
for creation of institutions that can help to develop linkages
between diverse stakeholders in the innovation value chain/
network. Increasingly the role of bridging actors are
becoming important determinant in the SI framework and are
termed as Innovation Intermediaries.
Innovation Intermediaries are crucial ingredients of any
innovation system. Innovation intermediaries are type of
superstructure organisations which act as a bridges between
actors and market.[24] They connect, translate and facilitate
the flow of knowledge and perform the functions of brokers
between the various parties.[25] Intermediaries link and transform
relationships within an innovation system by facilitating the
flow of information to substructure firms.[24] Specifically,
intermediaries can facilitate innovation processes by
performing activities that bridge user needs and the supply
side with respect to many areas, including technology, skill
and human resources, financial support, business and innovation
strategy, knowledge about new technology, implementation
and other matters.[26] In addition, intermediaries can help to
solve the ‘systemic failures’ in the innovation system.
The different type of bridging institutions that have been
extensively examined and have operationalised includes
science parks,[27] innovation consultants,[28] knowledge intensive
business services (KIBS) firms[29] and innovation brokers.[30]
These varied types of organisations now are defined under
innovation intermediary. The functions performed by inno-
vation intermediaries have evolved with time. Traditionally it
included scanning, gathering and communicating information;
linking together actors and brokering relationships; and
supporting and facilitating steps in the innovation process.[10]
While in recent literature, the concept and functions of
innovation intermediaries has broadened to innovation
system level for example the role in developing complex
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Shilpa and Bhattacharya.: Bilateral S&T Organisation as an Innovation Intermediary: Case Study of Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences
coordination of different actors to solve complicated societal
issues. These types of intermediaries include brokers, bridging
organizations, technology transfer intermediaries and boundary
organizations.[31] The innovation intermediaries can be seen as
a constructed institution to address different systemic failures.
Innovation intermediaries have been extensively studied in
the context of developed countries while such studies are
limited in case of developing countries. Van Lente et al.[25]
For example use a case study of the Californian Fuel Cell
Partnership (CaFCP) in the Californian transport sector to
illustrate the efforts of intermediaries to mitigate systemic
failures by articulating options and demand, by aligning
various actors and activities and by supporting learning
processes at the system level. Howell[10] investigates the issue
of intermediation and the role of intermediaries in the
innovation process using case-study materials from the United
Kingdom in 22 organizations. Chappin et al.[32] examines the
intermediary roles of an industry association in policy-making
processes by examining the Dutch paper and board industry.
In developing economies, innovation systems are weak and
fragmented because of the high number of aforementioned
systemic failures.[33] By tying different actors together and
enabling them to engage in interactive learning processes,
intermediary organizations in developing economies can
perform a key task in ‘building’ innovation systems.[34,35] This
differentiates the roles that intermediaries play in developing
economies from roles that they play in developed economies
with well-established innovation systems. Intarakumnerd[36]
investigates the roles of different types of intermediaries in
three industrial clusters in Thailand: hard disk drives, software
and chilli paste. Intarakumnerd et al.[37] identify the key
success and failure factors of actors in triple helix projects:
(1) the willingness, readiness and learning and absorptive
capacity of participating firms (2) the capability and credibility
of university experts and (3) the capability and dedication of
intermediaries. Szogs et al.[38] use data from Tanzania and El
Salvador to examine four types of interactive learning in
innovation systems. In user–producer interactive learning,
the intermediaries main role is to transfer information from
users to producers and help the latter meet the demands of the
former.
We argue that innovation intermediary which is typically
seen as an institution helping in catalysing linkages among
and between various actors stakeholders in the innovation
system can be further exploited in understanding various
types of linkages in developing international STI collobaration
between countries or multi-lateral institutions. This motivates
us to investigate to what extent bilateral institutions created
through bilateral collaboration to develop STI cooperation
acts as an innovation intermediary between the two countries.
We have taken Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences to make
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
this investigation. Our investigation is directed to examine its
influence in the innovation ecosystem; in this case in devel-
oping the STI Water ecosystem. Drawing from Klerkx and
Gildemacher[39] we define ‘bilateral S&T organization’ as a
systemic intermediary, as an entity that operates at the interface
between two nations, involving multiple innovation actors,
working to facilitate and coordinate innovation activities at
the system-level.
Background of Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences
(IFCWS)
Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences (IFCWS) was established
as a bilateral laboratory in 2001 between the Indian Institute
of Science (IISc), India and the Institut de Recherche pour le
Développement (IRD) at the IISc campus, Bangalore, India.
IISc is a premier research and training institution of India and
IRD is a French government funded organisation under the
supervision of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research
and also Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has international
presence mainly in Southern countries. The other partners of
IFCWS are National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Indian
Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in India and National
Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), National Center for
Space Studies (CNES) and National Institute for Agricultural
Research (INRA) in France. IFCWS research activities are in
different domains of water sciences like hydrology, remote
sensing, geochemistry, oceanography, atmospheric sciences,
ecology, biology, modeling and agronomy. Recently, six new
units have joined this laboratory as partners under the
leadership of IRD namely Géoscience Environnement Toulouse
(GET), Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie
Spatiales (LEGOS), Centre Européen de Recherche en
Géosciences de l’Environnement (CEREGE), Centre d’Etudes
Spatiales de la Biosphère, (CESBIO) Toulouse, Biogéochimie
et écologie des milieux continentaux (BIOEMCO), Paris and
Laboratoire d’Océanographie Dynamique et de Climatologie
(LOCEAN), Paris. From 2010, the laboratory has been
recognized as an International Joint Laboratory. In 2014 with
expansion of its vision, the laboratory has further expanded its
collaborations at regional (Indian Ocean countries, SE Asia)
and international levels (Africa, Europe, Japan and USA).
Distinguishing the different functions that can be constructed
by applying system of innovation framework (Table 2) provides
a good analytical approach to examine whether a bilateral
laboratory plays an important role in innovation/innovation
system. In the broader sense, a bilateral laboratory is a body
that operates in the space between other actors. These type
of organizations can make connections, enable a relationship
between different persons or organizations in different country
playing an active role in ordering and defining relationships
of two countries like other systemic innovation intermediaries.
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 Shilpa and Bhattacharya.: Bilateral S&T Organisation as an Innovation Intermediary: Case Study of Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences
A bilateral laboratory can thus play a direct role in co-devel-
opment of knowledge and innovation involving the various
institutions of the two countries. Other activities that it can
perform include helping to provide information about potential
collaborators in the partner country, brokering a transaction
between two or more organization in partner countries;
acting as a mediator between organisations that are already
collaborating; and helping find advice, funding and support
for the innovation outcomes of bilateral collaboration. Thus
the functions they perform are similar to an innovation
intermediary acting as a broker or mediator at different stages
of the innovation process and involved in co-development of
knowledge involving heterogeneous actors. Such laboratories
established under bilateral agreements have not been studied to that
extent particularly in the context of innovation system as compared
to the other actors like universities, research organisations and
multinational firms. In particular bilateral laboratory as an innovation
intermediary has not been examined.
The focus of this paper is on investigating the role of the
bilateral laboratory IFCWS in influencing the research and
innovation in water sciences between India and France.
In doing so it draws attention to whether we can postulate
a bilateral laboratory as an innovation intermediary i.e. how
such organisations may contribute as the bridging role to fill
in the systemic gaps, address system failures in a particular
sector of a country and take up a larger role in co-development
of knowledge.
Methodology
To understand properly the role of bilateral laboratory IFCWS
in the innovation system, we first examine the water research
network that has developed between the two countries i.e.
India and France. We apply co-authorship linkages constructed
from research papers to capture the structure and dynamics
of this network. Research publications form one of the key
knowledge outcomes of a research laboratory.[40] They are not
only produced from intellectual/scientific knowledge but also
include the sociological contexts of the scientific/technical
system,[41,42] According to Callon,[40] the power of intellectual
knowledge is built on the evolution of actor-networks which
includes heterogeneous agents.[43,44] Co-authorship analysis
has emerged as a useful approach to understand the structure
and dynamics of a research network including the social
network that is formed among actors.[45,46] These considerations
motivate us to apply this approach for this study in exploring
the Indo-French water research network.
Centrality measures from social network analysis were
calculated for the authors: degree, betweenness and closeness
centrality. Degree centrality equals the number of ties that a
vertex has with other vertices. Generally, vertices with higher
degree or more connections are more central and tend to have
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a greater capacity to influence others. Closeness centrality
emphasizes the distance of a vertex to all other vertices in the
network by focusing on the geodesic distance from each vertex
to all others. Betweenness centrality is based on the number of
shortest paths passing through a vertex. Vertices with a high
betweenness play the role of connecting different groups.
Co-authorship network is constructed for Indo-French
cooperation in water sciences through research publications
covering the period 1991-2015 from web-of-science. Papers
having author from India as well as France were downloaded
for period 1990-2015 in web of science category ‘water sciences’.
We apply descriptive case study approach2 to examine the
influence of IFCWS in the water innovation ecostem. Case
studies are considered useful in research as they enable
researchers to examine data at the micro level[47] and can be
a practical solution when a big sample population is difficult
to obtain, one needs to present data of real-life situations and
to provide better insights into the detailed behaviours of the
subjects of interest.[48,49] These considerations make case study
a rational choice for this study.
Based on the system of innovation function (Table 2) and
innovation intermediary literature, seven functions are
constructed (Table 3) for capturing the activities of bilateral
S&T laboratories. Further the sub-activities are identified
under each function. How well these sub-activities are served
2 Case study in which theory guides the collection of data is classified under
descriptive case study (Johnsson 2003)
Table 3: A Typology of Functions and Sub-Activities of a Bilateral S&T
Organisation.
Functions Sub-Activities
Research and Development 1. Research projects
Knowledge 2. Complementary skills
Co-development and
3. Exchange visits
Diffusion
4. Niche development
5. Joint Publications
Network Building 6. New Actors
7. Extension to European Union Network
8. Networks with Southern countries
9. International collaborations
Capacity Building 10. PhD program
11. Training programs for graduate students
12. Summer schools
13. Improved opportunities for young scholars
Social Capital 14. Trust development
Infrastructure Support 15. Physical Laboratory space
16. Development of Observatories
17. High Tech Instrumentation Platforms
Technology Transfers 18. Commercialization
Source: Data collected from primary and secondary survey
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Shilpa and Bhattacharya.: Bilateral S&T Organisation as an Innovation Intermediary: Case Study of Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences
is identified on the basis of primary survey (interview) and by
close reading of various documents of this laboratory.
The activities are explored through mapping of projects,
focused interviews and examining activities of this laboratory
as reflected in various documents. The first author visited the
IFCWS, IISc Bangalore in the month of March, 2016.
Interviews were conducted with the chairman of IFCWS,
Dr. M.S. Mohan Kumar from IISc, India and Dr. Jean Riotte
from IRD/GET, France. Interaction with other scientists in
the laboratory and students working with these scientists were
also undertaken. Subsequent visit was undertaken by the
second author to further substantiate the findings. Close
reading was done of various documents of this laboratory
which include printed/electronic publications, websites, news
release and other available materials. The interviewers were
selected to cover broad range of expertise and different level
of actors. Interviews were documented and coded manually.
The interpretation of findings is carried out on the basis of
interviews and available documents and strength of different
roles is on the basis of author’s perception after the analysis.
RESULTS
Role of Bilateral Laboratories in Indo-French
Cooperation: Co-authorship Network3
The co-authorship network of Indo-French water sciences
that has evolved over a period of time provides an idea
about the changes in core and peripheries of network. The
co-authorship network helps us to reveal: Who all are highly
connected in the network? Who are central players and are
connecting the sub-networks? How the roles of different
authors have changed over a period of time?. Drawing from
these indicators and field study that was done the dynamics of
the water network was captured.
We find that a large number of countries are involved as
collaborative partners with India and France. Indian authors
had partnership with 161 countries in their research papers in
water sciences whereas France had 192 partners. The papers
published in Indo-French cooperation in the area of water
sciences are 824 from 1991-20154. Water sciences have always
3 This section draws heavily from our earlier paper ‘Indo-French Cooperation
in Water Sciences: Capturing Research Dynamics through Co-Authorship
Analysis published in Current Science, Shilpa and Bhattacharya (2017),
113(09), 1668-1674. This is authors own work and authors have taken
approval from concerned authorities to re-use this.
4  This study is part of extensive study of two Indo-French laboratories in
India. Through our primary survey, it is observed that the key results are
jointly published by scholars from India and France targeting high impact
journals. While many other publications emerge which are published by
these cooperative partners individually. This cannot be strictly quantified
but in general we found this in the ratio of 1:3. This reveals that joint
partnership is much more influential then visible in real statistics. This may
be true for other joint cooperations in water sciences. This may also be true
for other international co-authorships.
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
been a priority area of Indo-French cooperation with increasing
number of formal agreements between the two countries1.
Indo-French Water Network (IFWN) was launched in early
2013 with an aim to bring together private and research
entities from both the countries together to create structured
dialogue of two countries in water sector5. During French
Foreign Affairs Minister’s visit to India in 2014, he promised
France’s cooperation to clean river Ganga through IFWN.
The evolution of the water network between India-France is
analysed in three phases i.e. 1991-2000, 2001-2010 and 2011-
2015. Three important events happened during this period:
establishment of Indo-French Center for Groundwater
Research (IFCGR) in 1999, establishment of Indo-French
Cell for Water Sciences (IFCWS) in 2001 and recognition
of IFCWS as an international laboratory. We posit that these
events played an important role in strengthening intellectual
and innovative linkages in water network within and between
the two countries.
In order to show the main co-authorship structure of the
network, we selected authors with atleast 3 papers in each
time period. This threshold resulted in 21, 42 and 30 authors
respectively in these three periods. Figure 1 is a co-authorship
map of these authors exhibiting the structure of author’s
collaboration network in these three time periods. The map
is composed of core sub-networks which are not connected
with each other. The shape of nodes represents the affiliated
country of the authors. Square represents the authors from
France, circle represents the authors from India and triangle
represents the authors from other countries. The thickness of
the line represents the number of papers in cooperation and
size of vertex represents the relative frequency of papers.
We observe different structures of the networks in three time
periods. In 1991-2000 there are distinct group of authors. In
2000-2010, the network is getting denser and some level of
interconnectivity is visible in different groups. The network
is further scattered in 2011-2015. However, unlike 1991-2000
the group size has increased and also there are linkages emerging
atleast in two important groups through a common node.
Marechal JC has emerged as a common node in later time
periods, playing an important role in connecting two groups
working in two different Indo-French laboratories i.e.
IFCWS and IFCGR.
After the initiation of this formal cooperation some scholars
were specifically deputed for research in this area of water
sciences from both the countries. It is interesting to see
these scholars as prolific authors in the Indo-French wa-
ter network. Few of the authors with high centrality val-
ues are indirectly associated with these laboratories. These
authors form the core (degree centrality), have direct
5 https://in.ambafrance.org/Launch-of-Indo-French-Water
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 Shilpa and Bhattacharya.: Bilateral S&T Organisation as an Innovation Intermediary: Case Study of Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences
Figure 1: Co-authorship Map in Three Different Time-period.
connections (closeness centrality) and connect different
groups (betweenness centrality).
In the later time periods, the highest degree centrality is of
JJ Braun. It is an indication of his influence and control over
the whole network. He was deputed in India and was directly
associated with IFCWS as co-chairman from 2001 to 2014.
This plausibly played a key role in his emergence as a central
node in the whole network. On the other hand we observe
Marechal JC has highest ‘betweeness centrality’ which plausibly
indicates his primary role in influencing different strands of
research groups i.e. acting as a bridge betweem different
research groups. He connects with different groups frequently
as one of the authors of their research papers. Marechal JC was
chairman of IFCGR from 2000 to 2003 and is also involved
as a lead in many research projects. Marechal JC again has the
lowest closeness centrality which indicates that he possessed
and controlled a great deal of research and is in a core position
of the whole network and this control is also distributed
among the other network members who possess high closeness
centrality like Riotte J, Perrin J, Ahmed S, Braun JJ and Audry S.
The co-authorship network gives a broad outline of the
knowledge links among India-France in water sciences as
underscored through research papers. The network also
highlights the important role played by a bilateral laboratory
in strengthening and stabilising the knowledge network.
Bilateral laboratory is playing an important role in connecting
different sub-domains of research in water sciences.
S26
We further examine the role and functions of IFCWS by
applying the framework of sectoral system of innovation.
Functions wer distinguished from primary field study and
close reading of secondary literature. Section below highlight
the influence of IFCWS under each function.
Research and Development
Solving complex problems require multi-expertise, resources
and institutional support. As solutions to complex problems
have wide reaching impact, different countries have strategic
interest for investing their efforts in solving the problems.
Issues pertaining to water also falls in this category. Joint
research projects take into consideration local knowledge,
participatory research and ecosystem approach involving all
stakeholders and also use instruments of bi-national or inter-
national co-operation. Some of the good examples include,
the UN Convention on Biological Diversity6 and the Ramsar
Convention7. IFCWS is another unique initiative in this
direction. The research priorities of IFCWS are under four
major themes 1) Environmental Biotechnology and Bioreme-
diation; 2) Adaptation of pristine and agro-systems to climate
and anthropogenic forcing; 3) Continuum ocean-continent-
atmosphere Hydro-logical cycle and climate variability;
4) Urban catchments and water systems.
Initially a project was funded by Indo French Center for
Promotion of Advanced Research ( CEFIPRA) in the area
of ‘environmental biotechnology and bioremediation’.
CEFIPRA was established to develop and synergise the overall
science-technology-innovation (STI) collaboration between
India and France in 1987. It has established itself as a model
organization for developing STI cooperation. For example,
CEFIPRA’s model is being used to construct Indo-EU joint
house in New Delhi. CEFIPRA role has also been active in
establishing IFCWS by funding projects at different periods
of time. CEFIPRA involvement in supporting IFCWS
highlights the unque linkages between two bilateral entities.
It is interesting to draw some insights of this project initially
funded by CEFIPRA. This project was on ‘Environmental
impact on metal mining’ which used bilateral, interdisciplinary
expertise (petrographical, mineralogical, geochemical and
microbiological studies) to understand the behavior of
contaminant and possible toxic elements in some sulfide mines
of the Karnataka State, India, involving mineral microbe
water interactions. It composed of core team of Dr. Jean-Jacques
BRAUN from IRD, France as the principal investigator from
France with specialization in the area of geochemical tracers
or weathering and hydrological processes, impact of silicate
weathering on atmospheric CO2 consumption and metal
cycling in soils and Prof. K.A. Natarajan as principal investigator
6 https://www.cbd.int/
7 http://www.ramsar.org/
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Shilpa and Bhattacharya.: Bilateral S&T Organisation as an Innovation Intermediary: Case Study of Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences
from IISc, Bangalore, India with specialization in biometallurgy,
hydrometallurgy and mineral processing.
….An innovative approach utilising industrial wastes
such as red mud and fly ash with respect to pH control
as well as biomass namely rice husk and tree bark as
growth medium for sulfate reducing bacteria such
as Desulfatomaculum nigrificans was adopted for
remediation of acid mine water”.
Preliminary research included determining acid production
potential of sulfide mine tailings and remediation of acid mine
drainage; bioremediation of chromium from effluents.
Molecular biology approaches and surface characterization
tools using microscopy and spectroscopy has been adopted
to gain a fundamental understanding of the processes. Later
research includes, developing effective and viable technologies
adopting novel strategies of chemical and biologically assisted
processes for the abatement of the chosen elements from
aqueous systems; formation of nano-particles through bio-
precipitation routes; development of bioreagents from extra
cellular secretions of micro-organisms for surface modification
of minerals in flotation processes.
Another area where the laboratory has been actively involved
is Adaptation of pristine and agro- systems to climate and
anthropogenic forcing. Initially, watersheds were implemented
(initiated with ‘watershed project’ in 2001) led to the char-
acterization of physical and chemical properties of different
compartments. The long term strategy was initiated for
delineating the effect of agriculture from climatic fluctuations,
to compare the functioning of both agro-systems and pristine
ecosystems, by using an integrated approach that consists of
(1) long term monitoring of meteorological, hydrological and
geochemical parameters (mass balances), (2) identification
of water-soil-plant interaction processes and (3) modeling.
For this, experimentation watersheds were initiated in 2003
within the framework of the Environmental Observatory i.e.
Mule Hole and Maddur. In 2008, it was further extended to
Table 4: Other Focus Areas of IFCWS.
Continuum Ocean-Continent-Atmosphere: Hydrological cycle and
climate variability
With respect to the understanding of highly complex and variable
system of Indian oceans particularly in monsoons, IFCWS has
proposed the work in four major domains i.e. large-scale continental
hydrology, water cycle, climate variability and monsoon and
biogeochemistry of the Northern Indian Ocean. The area of Northern
Indian Ocean water cycle is activity between IRD and the Indian
partners, including IISc, NIO and IITM. Further, climate variability
brings existing collaborations with both NIO and IITM within the
IFCWS. The last area on oceanic biogeochemistry is developed at the
request of NIO, which want to develop a modeling activity in that field.
Source: Constructed from Activity Reports CEFIPRA
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
the Kabini River Basin. Later on from 2010, water and
biogeochemical mass balances were established to model the
hydrological cycle and weathering fluxes exported from the
watershed. The laboratory is now continuing monitoring of
the experimental watershed network for the long term gain
and thorough understanding of the hydro-biogeochemical
functioning and dynamics in order to develop more accurate
hydrological and biogeochemical models. The new actors
entered the network recently, which will provide further
competencies to study pristine ecosystems and agro-systems
from a dynamic point of view, such as in remote sensing,
agronomy, economics, social sciences (agro-systems) and
ecology (in agro and pristine systems). Table 4 highlights the
other focus areas of IFCWS.
Knowledge Co-development and Diffusion
Collaboration has emerged as a key determinant of successful
innovation as it helps to bring together complimentary
strengths of two or more entities. This can be observed in
IFCWS also. IISc was working on the water issues before the
establishment of IFCWS with its core strength in modeling.
The interaction with French scholars and establishment of a
physical laboratory helped them to go to the fields, establish
and maintain watersheds and measuring water cycle in terms of
rainfall and bring more sophisticated tools for enriching research.
…….this cooperation has really helped and tend us
to establish several such monitored sites (physical
zone observatories) and also helped us to build other
collaborations bigger…..
Along with the above, the major benefit of interaction led to
the association of pool of experts with this laboratory. This
helped IFCWS to broaden their scope of studies, identifying
and working in areas that were not only pertinent to the two
countries but also having high relevance in the global contexts.
One of the very initial studies funded in IFCWS was the
environmental impact on metal mining. Through an inter-
disciplinary approach involving petrographical, mineralogical,
Urban catchments and water systems
Management of water supply to an urban city has become a challenging task owing to
population growth, expansion in industrial activities, changing climatic scenarios, rapidly
depleting water resource, increased demand for water, deteriorating infrastructure and water
quality and contamination of precious resource. One of the eight Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) of United Nations is to reduce by half the proportion of population without
sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. A reliable supply of
high quality water at a reasonable cost is of utmost importance for all types of consumers.
In this context, at IISc several research studies are conducted to address many of the issues
such as chemical and bacteriological effects on water quality in water networks, inverse
modelling to estimate system parameters in water networks, application of ANN models
for water quality (chemical / biological) transport and transformation in water networks,
role of controllers in equitable distribution of water in urban water networks to name a few
S27
 Shilpa and Bhattacharya.: Bilateral S&T Organisation as an Innovation Intermediary: Case Study of Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences
geochemical and microbiological studies, the behavior of
contaminant and possible toxic elements during water-rock
interactions in the Chitradurga sulphide mines of Karnataka
State, India was studied. The role of microorganisms in the
formation of acid mine drainage and toxic metal dissolution
was extensively studied with respect to microbial ecology,
microbe-mineral interaction and evaluation of acid production
potential. This was a highly successful project….
…..started with small way with experimental water shed
in forest, we moved to agricultural water shed, bigger
scale, environmental impact mining issues, we moved to
urban water shields, common theme is either water or
effect of water.
The success of this project also underscored how the project
not only benefitted IISc but also supported the objective of
IRD, the French partner. IRD has a mandate to do S&T
research outside France with an emphasis on research, training
and innovation activities intended to contribute to the social,
economic and cultural development of southern countries
through its international network. The project success was
also measured in terms of cross-learning, primary data
generated, exchange of young scholars and joint publications;
indicators seen important for both the partners. This project
provides a good benchmark for further follow up projects.
Network Building
Emergence of IFCWS in India since 2001 has seen involvement
of diverse actors. Broadly it includes government agencies that
fund and promote research, scientists in universities, research
laboratories who are involved in research then some people
associated with the fields under study. Under the Ministry
of Science and Technology, the primary agency involved is
Department of Science and Technology from India and IRD
from France. Figure 2 highlights the key actors primarily
involved in ICFWS in various capacities, roles and functions.
The IFCWS primarily comprises of two institutions: IRD and
IISc. Six French laboratories with IRD co-leadership (GET,
LEGOS, CEREGE CESBIO, BIOEMCO and LOCEAN)
and five departments and centres from IISc (Materials
Engineering Department, Civil Engineering Department,
Center for Ecological Sciences, Center for Earth Sciences,
Center for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences) are involved.
From the inception, the laboratory has included number of
different stakeholders from India as well as France (Figure 1).
In 2010, the laboratory got recognition as International Joint
Laboratory. It has built long-term networks with many actors
like Institut Francais de Pondicherry, University of Agricultural
sciences, Karnataka Forest Department, Water Database
Development and Management, Planning Commission India,
Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology.
S28
Figure 2: Actor Network Organization for IFCWS.
The laboratory is trying to extend its network to other
European countries by submitting joint research projects
in European calls like INCOLAB8. Some recent examples
highlight how this laboratory is reaching beyond bilateral
framework. Dedicated efforts to strengthen linkages can
be observed through the different conferences and summer
schools in which scholars from this laboratory are participating.
For example, S. Subramanian and J. J. Braun visited the
University of Narvik, Norway in June 2011 to attend a workshop
and formulate a proposal for submission to the Indo-Norway
Collaborative Project; Mohan Kumar with Prof. Majid
organized a Summer school at IISc, Bangalore with the Utrecht
University. Many such examples are visible. The laboratory is
also making efforts to enhance collaboration with South Asian
countries and international community. Two projects have
been submitted to NSF, exchange of students between India
and USA are some of the recent examples.
Capacity Building
IFCWS supports capacity building through Doctoral Training,
which aim to provide students with a ‘whole systems’ under-
standing of the water system. The doctoral training places a
strong emphasis on gaining experience of working scientist
from either France or India. Students are supported with
fellowships for exchange visits and attend training programs.
This arrangement builds valuable links between the two
countries. Apart from this number of graduate students are
trained in this laboratory. To complement these capacity
building functions, IFCWS also supports a number of other
initiatives like Summer School which gives a mixture of both
domestic and international PhD students an opportunity to
develop a wider understanding of the domain and also network
with students internationally.
8 In 1983, European Commission launched a dedicated programme called
the Science and Technology for Development Programme with a focus on
international research cooperation. In 1992, the Programme was integrated
into the Fourth Research Framework Programme (1994-1998) as the
International Cooperation Programme (INCO) and has, ever since, been
an integral part of all Framework Programmes.
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Shilpa and Bhattacharya.: Bilateral S&T Organisation as an Innovation Intermediary: Case Study of Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences
These capacity building activities are supported by different
funding organizations from the two countries. Furthermore,
it is been supported by some of the Research Councils
(e.g. EPSRC), project-based studentships also exist, which
attach PhD funding to a wider research project.
Social Capital
One programme of this laboratory is ‘French scientists on dep-
utation’ which means that these deputed French scientists stay
in India in specific associated laboratory for long-term (1-10
years) and work on specific designated projects. This provides
opportunity to Indian scholars to work with French specialists
in different areas. These deputed French scientists have also
helped in providing scholarships to French students to work
in Indian laboratories and develop complementary skills. This
initiative has strong support from IRD, the French partner
in this cell. As Wagner,[50] Altenberg, et al,[2] Bhattacharya
et al.[51] among others argue that the evolution of global
science i.e. emergence of new interdisciplinary fields is directly
linked the increasing global networks of researchers. These
studies identify how networks can provide unique opportunities
for developing countries to tap their research and innovation
potential. Role of government of developing countries in
facilitating international networks of their top notch scientists
by providing incentives to focus on research that addresses
the local issues of broader concern also emerges from this
scholarship. In underscoring the role of government in building
networks, this thesis also highlight the role of personal contacts
of scholars in developing scientific competency and addressing
global challenges through S&T interventions. Ernst[52] says
that personal contacts are invaluable and exchange visits and
long term stays in laboratories in different countries provide
foundation of common understanding and is the most efficient
way of establishing long term associations.
Close reading and interview highlight that long term associa-
tions in the influence of IFCWS have helped to build trust and
long term linkages among individual scholars. Many of the
French scholars whose deputation is over are still associated
with the Indian scholars.
……more important is trust and this long term
association helps to build this.
Infrastructure Support
Major financial support is provided by IRD and infrastructure
support primarily through IISc. CEFIPRA is another major
organization, initially supported number of projects
which further helped in infrastructure development of this
laboratory. The two major environmental observatory, in
IFCWS is ‘Kabini Critical Zone Observatory’ in India and
‘Service d’Observation Bassins Versants Expérimentaux
Tropicaux (SO BVET)’ in France. The SO BVET is supported
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
by IRD, CNRS and Université Paul Sabatier and the ‘Kabini
Critical Zone Observatory’. DST, Government of India, has
acknowledged Kabini Critical Zone Observatory considered
as a model for the development of a network of environmental
critical zones (CZOs) in India.
The two major platforms developed include water (and soil)
analysis and other on modeling. The water analysis platform
provides major anions, cations, silica and carbon analyses. The
modeling platform is dedicated to GIS, hydrological modelling
and crop modelling.
Technology Transfer
Projects implemented in IFCWS are mostly basic research
projects in water sheds. Through applied projects the laboratory
is trying to address urban water issues and water supply issues.
Scientists are also trying to conduct applied research dedicated
to the service of local communities, water agencies and farmers.
Table 5 provides some indications of its outreach to the
community.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The paper has made the proposition that a bilateral S&T
organisation can also be understood as an innovation
intermediary. It is different than a typical conceptual under-
standing of innovation intermediary as it acts as a bridge
between two countries, involving multiple innovation actors
and facilitate the innovation activities at system level. Sectoral
System of Innovation (SSI) was used as a conceptual framework
as study examined the performance of an actor (i.e. bilateral
S&T organization) in a specific sector. This paper has
developed systemic functions within this framework and has
attempted to apply this within the context of bilateral S&T
organisation. In this context we have defined seven major
functions and have further delineated them to sub-activities.
The paper highlights the importance of these functions to
understand a bilateral laboratory (or bilateral S&T organisation)
as an innovation intermediary and the influence of bilateral
laboratory at system level.
We have examined a case of bilateral laboratory established
between India and France i.e. Indo-French Cell for Water
Sciences (IFCWS).[53] Sectoral system of innovation provides
an important framework as actors and institutions associated
with IFCWS evolve in the sectoral dimension of water
sciences. IFCWS have developed knowledge domain expertise
in different sub-areas of water sciences. It is playing an
important role in linking different actors in this area including
academia, financial institutions, government agencies, industry
from two countries. This functional framework can also be
useful for other bilateral organizations and can be suitably
modified to understand the role of other actors in the SSI. This
will be useful for policy makers and democrats as this study
S29
 Shilpa and Bhattacharya.: Bilateral S&T Organisation as an Innovation Intermediary: Case Study of Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences
Table 5: Technologies Transferred.
Area
Water cycle and biogeochemical cycles in a context of global
change
Hydrology from space and Agro-hydrology and landscape
management
Environmental impact of mining
Source: CEFIPRA
will provide an additional framework for strategic implemen-
tation of bilateral organisations.
IFCWS is an organization established in a high priority area
and has performed several roles including the intermediary
roles for the development of the area of water sciences.
IFCWS has implemented joint research projects which have
solved some critical issues relevant for the government. One
of the major project of this cell is maintenance of watersheds
for improving on the understanding of hydro-biogeochemical
functions and dynamics. The other important projects include
the building up of standard models to predict the monsoons
and the state of Indian Ocean and providing flooding maps
for Bengal Delta. Both the countries has bought complementary
capabilities in developing projects. These complementary
research capabilities have not only helped in solving these
specific problems but have also developed expertise in the area
of research-gap. Research in cooperation stimulated by bilateral
entity provides a kind of an open research platform where
different organisations are encouraged to work together. IFCWS
has developed R&D network with inclusion of different type
of actors i.e. different funding organisations, project partners
and different associated actors from both the countries. The
laboratory is now reaching beyond bilateral framework and is
associating with actors beyond India and France. A key point
to note here is the vision provided to the scholars associated
with the network. The bilateral cooperation has itself inspired
them to realize the importance of development of regional or
international network.
Further, it has helped in building capacity of human resource
and laboratories in the different sub-domains of water sciences
by organizing workshops and seminars, training programs and
by engaging young scholars by various means. The long term
stay of French scientists in India has evolved as an efficient
way of building trust and a long term association between
two countries. Many scholars who were earlier connected
with the IFCWS are still informally part of this network. So,
we can say that these organisations play an important role in
S30
Technologies Transferred
Sensors (optic fibers); SEW characterization; SEW hydro(geo)logical and geochemical survey
(sensors); Implementation of experimental watersheds and monitoring; Numerical modeling;
CAL/VAL procedures; Coupling hydrological and geochemical
models
Megha Tropiques algorithms; Retrieval of soil moisture
from SAR; Retrieval of LAI from SAR; Disaggregation algorithms for ET from RS; Groundwater
recharge models using assimilation
of RS products; Algorithms for estimation of SHPs and development of soil maps using RS STICS
model
Use of red mud and fly ash for pH control and removal of metals; Utility of Sulfate Reducing
Bacteria for sulphate removal and heavy metal precipitation
strengthening the bi-national cooperation. It has also helped
in building infrastructure at different locations in both the
countries. This has also lead to the transfer of technologies to
different organisations in both the countries. These technologies
are from different priority sub-domains of IFCWS. A key
feature missing is this network is linkage with the industries.
Further cross-linkages with French and Indian industries can
helps to strengthen the innovation capacity of firms in this
sector in the two countries. This will also help in getting the
private sources of funding to the IFCWS. The study has
revealed that bilateral S&T organisations provide a much
wider and more varied role then innovation intermediaries
discussed in literature.
The study has also found the important role of scholars
associated with this laboratory (i.e. IFCWS) in developing and
sustaining Indo-French research network in water sciences
through co-authorship analysis. The case study approach/
interviews data further compliments as well supplements this
result by investigating more deeply its influence in research
and innovation ecosystem of the two countries in water
sciences.
The roles discussed, to a certain extent, mitigate systemic
failures. Table 6 draws from the two strands of literature in SI
i.e. ‘functions’ and ‘systemic failures’ in the context of IFCWS.
The roles, capabilities and systemic failures addressed by
IFCWS are summarized in Table 6.
It is evident from the above table that the different kinds of
intervention by IFCWS have played an important role in
mitigating the different systemic failures. The findings from
this study show to a large extent that IFCWS plays an
important role of linking different actors working in different
dimensions of water sciences from two countries. It has
also helped in co-creating knowledge and innovations.
The proposition that bilateral organisation can act as innovation
intermediary is supported to a large extent. However, it would be
fallacious to generalize this from a single case study. This calls
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Shilpa and Bhattacharya.: Bilateral S&T Organisation as an Innovation Intermediary: Case Study of Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences

Table 6: IFCWS: Interventions to Address System Failure.

Functions Systemic Failures Interventions by IFCWS
Research and Development Research capability failures (in interdisciplinary Provided platform to bring different organisations together
research expertise is not available in every sub- to work on common issues of interest (organisations in India,
fields) France as well as other countries)
Knowledge Co-development and Diffusion Research capability and learning failures (limited Provided platform to bring different organisations together with
research capability of an organisation and limited complementary skills and also facilitated cross learning through
visibility in research community) various modes like exchange visits. Interaction with industry
was largely absent. This can impede development of tradable
knowledge and technology transfer exchange.
Network Building Network failures (limited associations between Provided platform to bring in new organisations with formal
different stakeholders) cooperation structures to bring in new capabilities and to work
on bigger challenges
Capacity Building Capability and learning failures (limited Provided formal training and skill development programs for
development of human capital/resource) students from different areas and countries
Social Capital Social cooperation failures (limited trust and social Acted as a social bridge by bringing in policies of long term stay
bonds between different scholars) of researchers from different countries specially specifically the
stay of French scholars in India
Infrastructure Support Infrastructure and investment failures (limited Provided required space and equipments to required to tackle
finances and resources) different research problems and is also regularly improving on
these facilities
Technology Transfer Technology diffusion failures (limited absorptive Provided not only the diffusion of science and technology but
capacity) also effective absorption by developing human resource

Source: Constructed by authors1

1  ihttp://www.ambafrance-in.org/Indo-French-Water-Network-launch

for expanding this further to examine whether other bilateral
organisations in India and in other countries also show similar
behavior. The divergence between bilateral organisations
involving North-North countries and those between South-
South countries can be significant and may point out other
aspects which may further ehrich the proposition.
An important area where further work is required is also in the
understanding the effects of system functions and activities. It
is also observed that the varied type of activities performed by
the IFCWS play an important role in not only creating the
niche domain in water sciences area but also in the sustenance
of the areas already present. Such effects may also vary with
organisations in different domains. The bilateral S&T laboratories
are important structures that require further investigation in
the context of the development of innovation ecosystem. To
what extent political and socio-economic factors play a role
in organisations of this type in the STI partnership also needs
further study.
Based on the results and discussion of this study we provide
some recommendations which may help policy-makers
and concerned authorities to improve the effectiveness of
such organisations and establish more effective bilateral
organisations. The policy suggestions/recommendations we
propose are: (a) Concerned authorities should be proactive in
evaluating bilateral STI entities, their roles and functions in
terms of their relevance in meeting innovation demands of the
society and market. This will help such bilateral organisations
to have contemporary relevance; (b) Bilateral STI entity as
an ‘innovation intermediary’ can have useful implications
for strengthening research and innovation ecosystem of
partnering countries. This can be explored by policy makers;
(c) Bilateral STI entities can be influential in building up skills
and resources and can have long term impact on human
resource development. For innovation scholars we argue that
the role of bilateral entity in examining STI linkages between
countries can provide new insights. This is an area which has
not been explored extensively in innovation studies.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Authors thank Fourth Indialics International Conference held
during 1st to 5th November 2017 in which this paper was
presented. The comments and feedback has helped to shape
this paper. Authors have taken due copyright permission from
Current Science to include some findings from their earlier
study published in this journal entitled ‘Indo-French cooperation
in water sciences: Capturing research dynamics through
co-authorship analysis’. Authors thank Current Science for
giving this permission.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020 S31
 Shilpa and Bhattacharya.: Bilateral S&T Organisation as an Innovation Intermediary: Case Study of Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences
ABBREVIATIONS
IFCWS: Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences; OECD: The
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
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http://www.jscires.org IndiaLics Issue

Role of Patents in Biosimilar Drug Development

and Public Interest
Rujitha Thammanathuparambil Raveendrashenoy
National Law University, Kathajodi Campus, Odisha, INDIA.

ABSTRACT
The innovation in the field of biotechnology has opened up new venues in the
field of drug development like biosimilar drugs. The expiry of patents for many
biopharmaceutical substances in various jurisdictions paved the way for the
introduction of biosimilars in the market with reduced prices. The grant of patents
for drugs as well as biopharmaceutical drugs act as an incentive for the developers
to recoup their investment. But this has resulted in creating obstacle for access to Correspondence
medicine. The legislators have intervened in such situations by coming up with new Rujitha Thammanathuparambil
statute for balancing public interest and interest of patent holders of these drugs. Raveendrashenoy
This paper explores whether patents on biologics facilitates competition or retard
National Law University, Kathajodi Campus
competition or it require any other mechanisms to balance the interest of patent
holders and users/public interest. It explores how it has been regulated through 753015, Odisha, INDIA.
legislative intervention in United States and protected public interest. In this context, E-mail: rujitashenoy@gmail.com
examines the legislative attempts to protect public interest, by curbing anticompetitive
practices of the patent holder in case of chemical drugs and bio pharmaceutical
Received: 31-07-2018
drugs, by exploring the Hatch Waxman Act and BPCIA of United States. It delves in
to judicial decisions on patentability of biological materials and analyses its impact Revised: 27-08-2019
on biosimilar drugs. It also examines the challenges faced by the biosimilars in the Accepted: 07-11-2019
Indian markets and the adequacy of the safety requirement of biosimilars in India. DOI: 10.5530/jscires.9.2s.34

Keywords: Biosimilars, Patents, Patentability, Public interest.

INTRODUCTION challenged at any point. There should be a mechanism of

The grant of patent incentivises the inventor for his invention
by granting monopoly over the invention. But expansion of
patentable subject matter to life forms has created complexity
in fixing patentability standards. This resulted in granting
patents for all including gene. For example, the patent regime
of United States has gone to an extreme extend by the US
congressional intend of “anything made by the man under
the sun is patentable”. The Chakraborty case revolutionized
biotech industry in United States and in the long run realized
the abuse of patents in Myriad’s case by preventing access
to biological tools for diagnosis and research. The landmark
decision of US Supreme Court in Myriad case invalidating
isolated gene patents opened a new dawn in subject matter
eligibility of biotechnology and in Mayo case by invalidating
correlation method patents involving law of nature. Since
the patent grant is not an absolute grant its validity can be
Copyright
© The Author(s). 2020 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s)
and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if
changes were made.
balancing the interest of both users and owners. In United
States for such a check and balance, Hatch-Waxman Act is
one mechanism. The incentivising mechanism of innovators
both generics and patented drug manufacturers continued by
means of Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act
(hereafter BPCIA) and the Hatch-Waxman Amendments in
the United States of America.
The growing biosimilar market offers huge potential
for expansion for Pharmaceutical companies involved in
manufacturing, research and development of drugs. In the
light of expiry of patents of many biologics, there is great
scope for generic pharmaceutical companies to come up
with biosimilar drugs which are not like generic drugs.
Thus, biosimilars drugs are different and more complicated
than chemical drugs. Biopharmaceutical products are drugs
made of biological materials like insulin, erthropoietin,
chorionic gonadotropin, streptokinase, interferon, heparin. It
is also called biological drugs or biologics in United States.
Normally, drugs are chemical entities containing at least one
active ingredient like paracetamol, imatinib, erlotinibetc.
Biosimilars are biopharmaceuticals manufactured after the
expiry of patents on biological material involved. Biosimilars
should demonstrate that it is similar to the patented biological.

Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020 S33
 Raveendrashenoy: Role of Patents in Biosimilar drug development
In US biopharmaceutical products are called biologics/
biological.
This scenario poses challenges due to the complexity of
biological/biotechnology derived products as the generic
approach is scientifically not appropriate for biosimilar
products. In this context this paper examines how far the public
interest is protected by way of exclusive marketing rights
granted to developers and protection of its test data based on
the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (hereafter
BPCIA) and the Hatch-Waxman Amendments in the United
States of America. The intent of BPCIA is to incentivise
biologics developers and facilitate further investment in this
sector by granting data protection. Thus the first part of the
paper delves on the EU and US approach on biosimilar drugs
regulation, analysing positive and negative aspects of BPCIA
and Hatch-Waxman Act. This issue is further exacerbated by
judicial reasoning’s based on a recent ruling from the U.S.
Courts on biological materials related patents. The paper
examines the provisions of the BPCIA and the surrounding
uncertainties regarding the scope and type of data required
by Food and Drug Administration agency (hereafter FDA),
to support biosimilars applications. Also, to examine whether
the patent drives innovation for biosimilars drugs or simply to
dominate market by price differentiation.
European Union and United States Approach –
Biosimilar Regulation
Biosimilars and generic drugs are versions of brand name drugs,
normally they are manufactured after the expiry of patents,
in case of biosimilars, biological entity and chemical entity,
in case of generic medicines/non bio-pharmaceuticals. This
makes generics much cheaper when compared to the patented
drug. But generics should demonstrate bioequivalence to that
of patented drug. This makes them to avoid repeating the
costly clinical trials and thus able to come up with generics in
cheaper price in the market.
But when it comes in case of biosimilars, they cannot be called
as generics of the patented drug because unlike chemical
compound, biosimilars are not the same biological product,
but similar to it. So biosimilar manufacturers must demonstrate
that the biosimilar is highly similar to the patented biological
product or reference product (used in United States), except
for minor differences in clinically inactive components.
Biologics/biological product are one and the same. Biosimilar
manufacturers must also demonstrate that there are no
clinically meaningful differences between the biosimilar and
the reference product in terms of safety and effectiveness. In
biosimilars, bioequivalence is only the first step of clinical
development because the pharmacodynamics may be different
in spite of comparable kinetics unlike generics. Mainly, it has
to demonstrate comparable exposure before entering further
S34
clinical testing for pharmacodynamics, safety and efficacy.
[1]
This makes biosimilars entirely different from generic
medicines in terms of its procedure for approval. The most
controversial issues with biosimilars are immunogenicity and
extrapolation of therapeutic indications. Interchangeability
and substitution are regulated by individual EU member
states.[2] A originator/innovator drug/ reference drug can be
substituted with a biosimilar drug in United States as well as in
EU. Then it is called interchangeable product. In United States
if biosimilar product meets additional requirements given in
the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act then it
can be called interchangeable product. The major requirements
like comparability, interchangeable product are expected to
produce the same clinical result in terms of safety and efficacy
as the reference product in any given patient. The risk in terms
of safety and reduced efficacy of switching back and forth
between an interchangeable product and a reference product
will have to be evaluated so as to confer interchangeable product
status.[3] Once such a biosimilar is approved as interchangeable
by the FDA then the patient/pharmacist won’t require the
written prescription by the health care prescriber, subject to
pharmacy laws. But FDA has said that while by law it could
accept for filing and review an interchangeable biosimilar
application, in practice it would not approve a biosimilar as
interchangeable without some confirmatory market evidence.
In this context, FDA suggested that perhaps five years of post-
approval safety data would be sufficient for an applicant to
submit a supplement to its previously approved biosimilar
application, requesting a finding of interchangeability.
So in the near future, most biosimilar litigation in the
US will likely not involve an interchangeable biosimilar
product.
EU became the first country to come up with guidelines
for biosimilars approval to ensure its safety in 2001. The
European Union (EU) was the first to come up with a formal
approval of biosimilar pathway in 2001 and later amended to
include similar biological medicinal products. In 2005 came
up with first general biosimilar guidance. Sandoz’s somatropin
called Omnitrope in 2006 became the first formally approved
biosimilar drug. In Europe, the opposition process to a patent
granted by the European Patent Office (EPO) which called
central is the most common approach for challenging the
RBP’s patents.ie., post grant opposition, within nine months
after the patent is granted, which has public notice. It enables
a biosimilar manufacturer to challenge a RBP’s key patents
in a single forum rather than multiple nation state patent
courts. For example, oppositions were filed for epoetin (RBP
Epogen  [Amgen]), filgrastim (RBP Neupogen  [Amgen]),
infliximab RBP Remicade  [Johnson and Johnson/Janssen]),
insulin glargine (RBP Lantus [Sanofi]) and somatropin (RBP
Gentropin® [Pfizer]).
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Raveendrashenoy: Role of Patents in Biosimilar drug development
EPO has 38 contracting states and provides unified patent
prosecution and opposition with the option for national
patents by applicant choice after prosecution. Oppositions may
be filed by any public member(s) except the proprietor. It can
be challenged based on some specific grounds. The outcomes
may be retaining the validity, or invalidating the patent or the
patent is maintained in amended form with a new published
specification; decisions may be appealed within two months
and countries may have conflicting rules whether they stay, i.e.
halt further legal process, national patent infringement actions
while an opposition and any associated appeal is pending. EU
came up with specific biosimilar guidelines for similar biological
medicinal products containing biotechnology derived protein
as active substance as well as for monoclonal antibodies for
the development and assessment of medicinal products.
But still it faces challenges. The problem is to demonstrate
comparable efficacy, an example of which is durable anti-viral
effect in combination with inadequate immunogenicity data
of a biosimilar interferon alfa candidate. So the demonstration
of interchangeability according to stringent criteria will be a
major challenge that may discourage biosimilar development.
So immunogenicity of biosimilars must always be addressed
in comparative studies. Another challenge is the lack of
standardization of the assays and very few control sera are
available which is creating a hurdle for immunogenicity
comparative studies. The extrapolation of clinical efficacy and
safety from one therapeutic indication for which the biosimilar
was clinically studied, to other therapeutic indications should
be done with caution with sufficient safety and efficacy data.
Since there is a need to update the biosimilar guidelines due
to newly developed background therapy as well as frequent
updating, but that may create confusion too.
Biosimilar Patents in EU: Emerging issues
In EU there are no cases involving granting patents to
biosimilars or any patent disputes on biosimilars presently
existing, however, patent applications have been filed in EU.
But the most important question will be how biosimilars
will be satisfying the novelty and inventive step criteria. By
drawing the analogy from decisions of biotechnology related
patents any claim for the partial sequence which shows similar
function of the patented sequence may hit novelty. This poses
the question of how much percentage of difference/similarity
when compared to identical sequence is required to satisfy
the criteria of novelty. There are instances where noncoding
sequence along with the partial sequence even though
makes a structural difference may not cause any change in
function, this shows instances of single change in sequences
like Single nucleotide polymorphism may not satisfy
inventive step criteria based on existing biotechnology patent
decisions in Europe. Only if, the biosimilar manufacturer
is able to show that the compound or sequence is having a
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
better function/result ie., unexpected characteristics of a
product or effects of novel process.[4] So granting novelty
or inventive step especially for sequences related biological
products are different, patent office’s follows different ways.
In EU Biotechnology patent directive expressly states isolated
biological materials are patentable. The recent Myriad
gene patent decision of European Court did not result in
invalidation of BRCA patents. The reasoning given by the
Court was that claims to human DNA encoding the BRCA1
gene and corresponding to the U.S. Patent No. 5,747,282
patent at issue in Myriad are obtained by technical processes
are patent-eligible and do not fall within the category of
alleged inventions that are excluded from protection as mere
discoveries. The European Biotechnology patent directive
clearly mentions that isolated gene are patent eligible. The
Rule 29(2) of the EPC Implementing Regulations states that
elements of the human body that are isolated or technically
produced, including a sequence or partial sequence of a gene,
can constitute inventions. This shows that in Europe there are
less chances for controversies regarding biosimilar patenting
issues. Biosimilars manufacturers can take patents for a new
formulation, method of delivery, or dosage regimen for a
known agent, etc. as well as follow on patents are having high
potential value. But if the new changes differ substantially from
the innovator drug them it cannot seek biosimilar approval. In
case of follow on patents also separate clinical study data will
be required. In EU already twenty-one biosimilars are in the
market till now none of these have been withdrawn from the
market for issues related to safety/efficacy. This reflects the
effectiveness of the biosimilar guidelines in EU.
Biosimilars Patent Cooperation and Innovation Act
(BPCIA) in United States and Public Interest
In United States biosimilar regulation was done through
Biosimilars Patent Cooperation and Innovation Act (BPCIA)
2010 which is part of Ex US President Barak Obama’s health
care reforms provision included in the Patent Protection
and Affordable Care Act, 2010. This is drawn similar to the
Hatch Waxman Act for generic drugs. Here the generic
manufacturers are given opportunity of challenge the patent
on drugs by filing ANDA application which means generic
manufacturer is going to infringe the patents. Based on this
notice when the patent holder files a suit against the generic
manufacturer for patent infringement and if the decision
is not rendered by the court within thirty months ANDA
applicant i.e., generic manufacturer will get 180 days exclusive
marketing rights. Thus this provision acted as a tool for quality
check of patents, conferring patent does not guarantees that it
is 100% absolute. Thus facilities early entry of generics in the
market at cheaper costs, thus protecting the public interest.
It is in these lines BPCIA has been enacted, for early entry of
biosimilars while considering the interests of patent holders
S35
 Raveendrashenoy: Role of Patents in Biosimilar drug development
of the reference drug/original drug. Thus BPCIA facilitates
competition between the original drug manufacturers with
that of biosimilars.
Sandoz’s filgrastim became the first approved biosimilar-
Zarxio® in 2015.[5] While the EU’s legal system is complicated
because of multi-country patent litigation approach, the US
biosimilar patent litigation has been complicated by biosimilar
applicants and the reference biological product (RBP)
applicants by choosing the nature of provisions under BPCIA
beneficial for them.[6]
The EU and the US have similar regulatory standards for
biosimilars that would enable a manufacturer to make a
biosimilar product that could in theory satisfy both regulatory
standards, assuming that the RBP is the same. In the EU, a
biosimilar must demonstrate similar quality and biological
activity and demonstrate no meaningful differences in
terms of safety or efficacy between the biosimilar and the
RBP. European Medical Agency develops product-specific
guidances through a consultative process that establishes
common comprehensive comparability and immunogenicity
studies required for biosimilar applicants to demonstrate
biosimilarity for approval. As part of these requirements,
biosimilar applicants are expected to conduct a product-
by-product analysis using state-of-the-art bioanalytics and
manufacturing along with clinical and regulatory experiences
to support biosimilarity. In United States, biosimilars must be
highly similar to the RBP notwithstanding minor differences
in clinically-inactive components. To demonstrate bio
similarity, there must be no clinically meaningful differences
in terms of safety, purity, or potency, essentially safety and
efficacy. So far, US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
has come up with draft of product-specific guidances for
biosimilars.[7]
In US biosimilar patent litigation is regulated through
BPCIA provisions which mainly attempts to reduce litigation
between the biosimilar applicant and RBP holder, by default
exchange of information and there are at least two distinct
phases of patent litigation.[8] This mechanism differs entirely
from Hatch-Waxman patent litigation for small molecule
drugs.[9] The intention of the legislation is to reduce maximum
litigation as possible by voluntary exchange of information
including the biosimilars application and information that
describes the process(es) used to manufacture the biological
product in the application and relevant patents as determined
by the RBP holder and biosimilar applicant and limited rights
are given if not participating in the voluntary exchanges. It
means attracting the biosimilar applicant to prefer license
from the original biologics manufacturer also, making these
provisions as a tool for granting license in a reasonable terms
between the parties. The Act also envisages multiple patent
litigation 180 days prior to commercial product launch and
S36
post launch. The goals of the 180-day notification period for
biosimilars is to satisfy its initial objective of settling disputes
between parties, thus giving enough time for handling
potential patent infringement and to ensure that there was
sufficient time to file for injunction. But these provisions are
making the applicant to wait till approval there by giving
the RBP holder a sort of monopoly/exclusivity resulting in
patent term extension. The other side is a patent infringement
suit can be filed even after 180 days by the RBP holder thus
delaying six months. This can be said to be a reason why
there are only three biosimilars in US markets available when
compared with the EU where twenty one biosimilars are in
the market. The legal as well as regulatory hurdles with that
of heavy expenses involved in pre marketing of the product
as well as the post market commercialization will be huge are
the compelling reasons for less biosimilar applicants in US.
The protection for biologics, statutory exclusivity period
of 12 years (despite the Obama Administration’s attempts
to limit this period to 7 years). The exclusivity period act
as an incentive for the original biologics manufacturer after
which biosimilar applicant can rely on the clinical data and
non-clinical. Unique to the US, FDA may determine a
biosimilar product is ‘interchangeable’ with the RBP. EU
also has substitutive biosimilar provision. But till date no such
interchangeable biosimilars products have been approved in
both jurisdictions. The BPCIA tried to protect public interest
by facilitating first filing for license of interchangeable
biosimilars products by granting incentive of exclusive
marketing rights for one year. So if biosimilar applicant goes
further to get license for interchangeable biosimilar product
he can avail this benefit. The first-filing biosimilar applicant
has the benefit of first commercial marketing exclusivity for
one year. The second interchangeable biosimilar product will
get license only after if it satisfies the following conditions.
(i) 12 months after first commercial marketing of the first-
filed aBLA product interchangeable biosimilar product; (ii)
18 months after a “final court decision” in any litigation over
patents that are the subject of the aBLA product are in favour
of applicant, or the dismissal of such an action; (iii) 18 months
after submitting aBLA to the biologic manufacturer and the
biologic manufacturer fails to sue the biosimilar applicant; and
(iv) 42 months after the approval of the aBLA product that is
still the subject of litigation. The method seems to be more
stringent so as to qualify for interchangeable product. The
concerns are whether the investment on interchangeability
is worth as far the acceptability of biosimilars in the market
or is it worth to spend for its popularity/awareness on non-
interchangeable product rather than on interchangeable
biosimilars.
The recent litigation in biosimilars in United States shows
the need to revisit the provisions of the BPCIA act so as
to rectify the anomalies.[9]  Around nine of the biosimilars
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Raveendrashenoy: Role of Patents in Biosimilar drug development
are under patent litigation in United States. Celltrion and
Pfizer›s Inflectra (infliximab-dyyb), a biosimilar to Johnson
and Johnson’s Remicade (infliximab), which was approved
has been challenged by Johnson and Johnson  for patent
infringement. So the lack of exclusivity period for the
first noninterchangeable biosimilar potentially limits the
incentives for early biosimilar entry unlike Hatch Waxman
Act for generic medicines. Unlike the wide acceptance for
the generics with much cheaper rate biosimilars are not
gaining popularity, one reason being the cost itself, not a
huge margin between original biologics manufacturer and
the biosimilar manufacturer because of the extra expenses
involved in proving comparability, safety and efficacy with
that of reference biologics/original biologics. The study in US
after three years of biosimilars entry in to US market reveals
that only 12% of doctors are confidently recommending it out
of 17% of doctors who supported biosimilars.[10]
In recent decision in Sandoz Inc.v.Amgen Inc.[11] the Supreme
Court’s decision added more clarity and more flexibility to
biosimilar companies and filers of abbreviated Biologics
License Applications (“aBLAs”), holding that (1) a reference
product sponsor is not entitled to injunctive relief under federal
law for an applicant’s refusal to provide a copy of its aBLA and
manufacturing information during the information exchange
period contemplated by the BPCIA and (2) an applicant may
provide statutory 180-day pre-launch notice of commercial
marketing  before  its proposed biosimilar product is licensed
by FDA, thus making it a non-mandatory provision. So in
United States more experience has to be gained to study the
impact of the BPCIA and further changes to be made in the
light of upcoming litigation where court tries to clarify the
same. The decisions in Myriad case[13] invalidating gene
patents and Mayo’s decision[12] of invalidating co relation
patents will be added advantage for the biosimilar developer
in United States giving access to biological product and an
easier way for either infringement or challenging the validity
of patents. Thus, patents for biologics have been used as a
double edged sword for protecting the interest of the inventor
at the same time using the provisions under BPCIA patents
are subjected to challenge there by facilitating competition
between original biologics and biosimilars.
Patentability challenge for Biologics and Biosimilars in
United States
The recent judgments in Mayo and Myriad had created far
reaching impact on patent eligibility. In  Mayo Collaborative
Services v. Prometheus Labs, Inc., the claims at issue were directed
to a method of optimizing therapeutic efficacy of thiopurine
drugs for treating autoimmune diseases by measuring the
levels of certain metabolites in a patient’s blood to determine
whether the amount of drug should be increased or decreased.
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
In holding the claims patent ineligible, the Supreme Court
found that the claims merely “set forth laws of nature namely,
relationships between concentrations of certain metabolites
in the blood and the likelihood that a dosage of a thiopurine
drug will prove ineffective or cause harm” and failed to “do
significantly more than simply describe these natural relations.”
Based on this decision many of the claims for method of
treatment became ineligible. In Endo Pharmaceuticals., Inc. v.
Actavis Inc[15]claims reciting a method of treating pain by
administering to a patient oxymorphone dosed in accordance
with the patient’s creatinine clearance were directed to a law
of nature and the administering step was insufficient to turn
the natural law into a patentable application.  The subject
matter of the invention was “the reaction of the human body
of a renally impaired individual to oxymorphone, which is
unquestionably a natural law.” Again claims for method of
treating metabolic disease in patients intolerable to metformin
therapy by administering a dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-
4) inhibitor were held patent ineligible because they were
“directed to an abstract idea of administering a drug to a
targeted patient population,” and the additional features
recited in the claims were no more than “a well-understood,
routine, conventional activity” and insufficient to “transform
the abstract idea of administering DPP-IV inhibitor to a patent
eligible subject matter.”[13] However, in case of composition
claims courts took a different view making it patent eligible.
The claims directed to a composition comprising a specified
amount of lisdexamfetamine having certain PK properties
were held patent eligible.[14]Also claims directed to a
controlled-release oxymorphone tablet having certain PK
limitations were patent eligible.[15] Thus one can see the claims
that are directed to a specific dosing regimen or indications or
pharmacokinetic (PK) properties can easily be reduced to an
abstract idea, a law of nature, or a natural phenomenon makes
it ineligible patent subject matter. But claims for compositions
or formulations becomes patent eligible.
In Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc.,[16]
in which the court found claims directed to isolated DNA
fragments derived from BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes patent
ineligible, while those directed to cDNA fragments patent
eligible. Though during isolation there will be mere changes
in structure but that is not changing the natural functions
of a gene as an information carrier. Thus the markedly
different structure reasoning of the federal court has been
rejected by the US Supreme Court. But in case  of cDNA,
i.e., complementary DNA it is it by human intervention how
cDNA is synthesized, otherwise cDNA as such does not exists
in the body. Thus the court tried to differentiate the human
intervention involved in mere isolation as well as in creating
cDNA. As far as biosimilars are concerned based on the above
said decisions compositions and formulations may become
patent eligible but claims relating to method of treatment/
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 Raveendrashenoy: Role of Patents in Biosimilar drug development

dosage regimen becomes patent ineligible. The safer way is shows how the multinational companies are taking advantage
to go for process patents on the therapeutic applications of of the situation by not selling their best products in Indian
the biosimilar as there is a ban on patents on human organism market. The Indian government started giving subsidies for
incorporated by way of American Invent Act 2011.[17] the production of biosimilars in 2017. This shows that non-
innovator biologic approved by RCGM and CDSCO in India
BIOSIMILARS IN INDIA- EMERGING are not effective and there is a need to review entire approval
CHALLENGES process of Similar Biologic.
The Indian biotech sector is divided into five major segments The Delhi High Court decision in Roche v Drug controller
bio-pharma, bio-services, bio-agri, bio-industrial and bio- general of India[20] where Biocon and Mylan were prevented
informatics.[21] The bio-pharmaceutical sector accounts for the from labelling their versions of the breast cancer therapy drug
largest share of the biotech industry with a share of 64% in trastuzumab as “biosimilars” of Roche’s Herceptin (sold in
total revenues in 2013, followed by bio-services (18%), bio- India under the brand names Herclon and Biceltis), for the use
agri (14%), bio-industrial (3%) and bio-informatics (1%).It is of language on the packaging and any use of data from Roche’s
the No. 1 producer of Hepatitis B recombinant vaccine.[18] own work on trastuzumab in product inserts. Roche argues
Human health applications include therapeutics, diagnostics,
pharmacogenetics to improve prescribing practices, functional Table 1: Indian Companies Manufacturing Biosimilar Drugs in India.[39]
foods and nutraceuticals and some medical devices. The shape COMPANY(LOCATION) BIOSIMILAR PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
of the future bioeconomy will depend on breakthroughs Dr. Reddy’sLab Grafeel Filgrastim(recombinant
in basic and applied research in the biological sciences; but (Hyderabad) ranulocyte-macrophage
also on innovations in governance systems, regulations and colony-stimulating factor,
G-CSF)
business models.
Reditux Biosimilar rituximab (mAb
India started producing the biosimilars from 2000. The 2017 targeting CD20)
report of Decision Resources Group’s says 40 biosimilars are Cresp Darbepoetinalfa (recombinant
erythropoietin)
in pipeline when compared to EU. But according to experts
the biosimilars available in India are non-innovator biologics Intas (Ahmedabad) Epofit Recombinant erythropoietin

because they are not meeting the standards of the International Neukine Filgrastim (recombinant
G-CSF)
Guidelines for the biosimilar approval. Though India came
Neupeg PEGylated G-CS
up with the biosimilar guidelines in 2013 and again revised
Intalfa Recombinant human interferon
in 2016 which is in line with European medical Agency
alpha-2b
guidelines as well as that of WHO, the strict implementation
ShanthaBiotech/Merieux Shanferon Recombinant interferon alpha-
and the rigorous standards of comparability with the originator Alliance (Hyderabad) 2b
drug is not going on. This has resulted in more number of Shankinase Recombinant streptokinase
biosimilars in India produced by Indian companies. Biocon
Shanpoietin Recombinant erythropoietin
and Mylan’s  fulphila (trastuzumab), a biosimilar of Neulasta
Reliance Life Sciences ReliPoietin Recombinant erythropoietin
indicated to minimise febrile neutropenia while cancer (Mumbai)
patients undergo chemotherapy, became the first biosimilar ReliGrast Recombinant G-CSF
produced by an Indian company approved by US FDA in ReliFeron Recombinant interferon alpha-
2018.[19] Fulphila is currently under review in Australia and 2b
the European Union. MIRel Recombinant reteplase (tissue
plasminogen activator)
The price differentiation became a basis for its success in India
Wockhardt (Mumbai) Wepox Recombinant erythropoietin
when compared to the quality and safety that is mandated
Wosulin Recombinant insulin
in countries like US and EU. The lethargic attitude of the
Biocon (Bangalore) Eripro Recombinant human
implementers of the guidelines affects the quality of biosimilars
erythropoietin
making available to the patients of India. A recent example is
Biomab Bioximilarnimotuzumab
the biosimilar launched by Mylan in 2014, Mylan launched (humanized mAb targeting
Hertraz and Biocon launched CANmab similar biologic of epidermal growth factor
Trastuzumab in India but without properly following the receptor)

biosimilar guidelines. Same companies did not prefer to Nufil Filgrastim, recombinant G-CSF
obtain approval of their Indian trastuzumab biosimilar in US Myokinase Recombinant streptokinase
biosimilar
rather a new biosimilar MYL-1401O fulfilling regulatory
Insugen Recombinant human insulin
requirements of US-FDA was obtained in year 2017. This

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 Raveendrashenoy: Role of Patents in Biosimilar drug development

Table 2: Current prices of selected blockbuster biologics and cost of manufacture for the active ingredient.[40]
Medicine Example indication Duration of treatment Lowest available price (USD) Cost of manufacturing
used for comparison the active ingredient
(corresponding dosage
in mg) US UK INDIA
Adalimumab Rheumatoid arthritis 2-week cycle (40mg) $707 $482 $385* $1–12
Alemtuzumab Relapsingremitting multiple 2-year treatment course $122,477 $77,213 N $2–29
sclerosis (96mg)
Bevacizumab Metastastic colorectal cancer 2-week cycle (700mg) $ $3,694 $2,216 $1,077* $14–210
Etanercept Rheumatoid arthritis 1 month of treatment $2,019 $3,526* $639* $4–60
(200mg)
Infliximab Crohn’s disease 1 maintenance dose $1,753* $1,808* $1,723* $7–105
(350mg)
Ranibizumab Wet agerelated macular 1 intravitreal injection $1,300 $229 $57* $0.01–0.15
degeneration (0.5mg)
Rituximab Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma 1 cycle (650mg) $3,685 $1,400* $711* $13–195
Trastuzumab HER2-positive breast cancer 3-week cycle (420mg) $2,878 $1,172 $861* $8–126
*Biosimilar

Table 3: Indian Biosimilars in Export Market. Table 4: Indian Biosimilars Market in Europe.

Medicine Active Substance Marketing Authorisation

Name Authorisation Date
Holder(Indian)

ACCOFIL FILGRASTIM INTAS 18/9/2014

PHARMACEUTICALS

SEMGLEE INSULIN BIOCON/MYLAN 23/3/2018

GLARGINE

PELGRAZ PEGFILGRASTIM INTAS 21/9/2018

PHARMASEUTICALS

Table 5: Indian Biosimilars Market in United States.

Medicine Name Active Marketing Authorisation

Substance Authorisation Date
Holder(Indian)

Fulphia Pegfilgrastim Biocon/Mylan 4/6/2018

Ogivri Trastuzumab Biocon/Mylan 1/12/2017

The data shows growing export market for Indian biosimilars in Europe and
United States.
Source: IPSOS data

that what biocon is selling is not a biosimilar of their product
Herceptin. They have not followed the thoroughly clinical
and regulatory guidelines for biosimilar in India. So Biocon
cannot sell their products as biosimilar of Roche and cannot
use any details/data in their packing and results in passing off.
The court agreeing with the contentions transgressed in to
the power of drug controller and RCGM and CDSCO safety
ensuring committees. Also for the allegation of usage of brand
name, here Biocon was using its own Trade name and also
it is clearly mentioned that it is manufactured by them and
Biocon’s product is certified by the drug controller. So there
is no misrepresentation or confusion created as the consumers
are doctors only as it is an intravenous drug. Also, if the issue is
regarding the use of Herceptin brand name of Roche Biocon
used it to mention biosimilar of Herceptin which is a fair use
under Trademark. They failed to prove misrepresentation
aspect. The Roche’s action to prevent biocon from entering
the market has been taken before Competition commission

Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020 S39
 Raveendrashenoy: Role of Patents in Biosimilar drug development
Table 6: The leading players in the segment and their target markets.
Company Pipeline info Target Markets
Biocon
Pegfilgrastim
Bevacizumab
Filgrastim
Etanercept
Intas Biologicals 5 biosimilars in the pipeline for
India and 5 for regulated markets
of EU and USA
Dr. Reddys Rituximab
Pegfilgrastim
Bevacizumab
ZydusCadila
Reliance Life Sciences
Lupin Pharma
Wockhardt
Table indicates pipeline of some of the leading players in the segment and their target markets:
of India where they are denigrating the competitor’s product
in the Market which cannot be considered as a marketing
strategy it will fall under anti-competitive practice.
Biologics Patents: Issues in India
India is among the top 12 biotech destinations in the world and
ranks third in the Asia-Pacific region.[21] The Indian biotech
industry holds about 2 per cent share of the global biotech
industry.[22] The 2014 Indian Patent Office (IPO) annual
report stated that approximately 43,000 patent applications
were filed between April 2013 and March 2014. Over 2,300 of
these are related to biotechnology and other related fields.[23]
Although patent filing in India in general has increased in the
last few years, biotechnology patent filing has decreased. This
is consistent with the global trend. Among other things, it
could be attributed to more stringent criteria for patentability
and grant of patents in this domain. Since biosimilars are
biological products, for its patenting one should know the
patent jurisprudence for biotechnology related inventions in
India.
Patents incentivize the inventor by granting exclusive rights
and public through disclosure of the invention. Patentability
i.e., both patent subject matter principle and standards of
patentability act as the gatekeepers to maintain public domain
to facilitate innovation while preserving the basic materials.
TRIPS Agreement has provided flexibilities under Art. 27.3
which helps to keep natural phenomenon and laws of nature
S40
Stage of Development
Adalimumab Global Phase 3 completed
Trastuzumab Approved in USA, Under review in EU, Canada and
Australia, Filed/Marketed in Emerging markets
USA, EU, Canada, Australia, EM filing
Marketed in India Global phase three
Early Development
USA, EU Approval enabling studies initiated
USA, EU
USA, EU
2 new molecules entering clinical development in coming months
8 biosimilars in the pipelines for regulated markets and India
14 biosimilars in global pipeline
5 biosimilars in global pipeline
4 biosimilars in global pipeline
in the public domain. As far as Indian Patent is concerned by
way of exclusions under section 3 where discoveries are not
patentable made biological materials un patentable Exclusion
of chemical process from the purview of product patent also
kept biological materials as well as diagnostic kits outside the
purview of subject matter even in 1970 Patent Act. After
signing WTO, based on the TRIPs flexibilities Indian patent
act expressly excludes diagnostic, surgical, prophylactic,
curative method patents and method of treatment from the
purview of patents. Also excludes plants and animals other
than microorganism.[28] Thus it gives the impression that
biological materials like gene are not patentable. As far as patent
legislation is concerned, the Patents Act, 1970 does not specify
which are patentable, but it illustrates subject matters that are
not patentable. This is used as a major barrier for patenting
products and also inventions related to biotech and pharma
industry, the 2005 amendment was bought in to incorporate
the product patenting as mandated by TRIPS, by one handle
we recognised and incorporated, by another handle we raised
the standard of patentability and exclusion of patentable
subject matter. Even after repeated amendments even now the
Patent Act of India is not addressing certain cardinal building
blocks of biotech inventions. The Act is silent on terms like
DNA, rDNA, genes etc which are crucial in determining the
scope of biotech invention; however silence in this regard is
giving the patent officer more flexibility. Indian patent law
has provided exclusions in subject matter to keep life forms
based discoveries as non-patentable which means natural
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Raveendrashenoy: Role of Patents in Biosimilar drug development
products isolation will fall under mere discovery principle.
The definitions in Patent Act for invention and inventive
step draws to a very high standard of patentability. However
the recent trends and the ground reality shows the fact that
there is high monopolisation happening in agro and pharma
sector. Even after more than 12 year of product patenting, the
core issue of product patents on seeds, plants and medicines
remains the same and the threat of monopolies and protection
of well-defined pubic interest and public domain in law still
needs to be addressed. The lack of judicial decisions, as well
as confusing biotechnology examination guidelines as well as
careless patent grants on non-eligible matter in biotechnology
also adds to the uncertainty.
The importance of this exclusionary category of subject
matter is that it helps to keep this category in public domain,
nobody can properties it and thereby protecting public
interest. Patents for genetically modified gene sequence as
well as for genetic technologies should be granted cautiously
because these are upstream products used in experimentation,
patents on upstream products will result in to preventing
access to researchers, scientist and also for laboratories for
diagnosis purpose. So, section three of Patent Act are taking
care of human rights i.e Right to health. The provisions of
compulsory license as well as research exceptions are provisions
to ensure public access to affordable pharmaceuticals/
biomedical treatments and to encourage further research. The
examinations guidelines which are not having any statutory
back up should not dilute legislative intent. The economic
growth should not neglect the social progress and human
values so as to protect anything having some commercial
value.[24]
The exclusions should be viewed as aspects of nature where
no property rights can be claimed and should be viewed as
tools of invention and innovation that should remain freely
accessible in order to maximize technological advance.[25] Such
gene patents prevent access to innovate further in genetic
testing technologies itself. [26] As far as India is concerned,
there is a need for having a clear policy on patenting of
gene. In this context, the term microorganism has to be re-
examined as viral sequences are of highly useful in developing
vaccines. In some countries virus has been excluded from the
microorganism. TRIPS does not expressly mandates to grant
patents on gene, in such a situation there is no obligation
on the part of India to grant gene patents. Adopting TRIPS
provisions India has excluded medicinal, surgical, curative,
diagnostic, therapeutic process for the treatment of human
beings and animals from patentable subject matter. Also, the
application of provisions of section 3(d) to the biotechnology
patent applications provisions, is yet to be seen how India will
treat such patent applications because of lack of case laws.
There is a strong need for India to take a policy decision on
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
gene patents keeping in view its importance in drugs and
vaccine development, developing diagnosis tests and kits.
Patents, Biosimilars and Public interest
Patents are granted for a period of twenty years, this itself
shows that public interest to be considered by restricting
the monopoly to certain period. Biosimilars are able to
manufacture because of this restricted monopoly, thus striking
a balance between the owners and users interest. Thus able to
make the same drug available at a cheaper affordable price.
Countries adopt various mechanisms to protect public interest
like subject matter exclusions, raising patentability standards,
provisions on compulsory licensing, government use,
experimentation exception and patent exhaustion principle.
All these are keeping in mind the public interest. Thus Indian
Patent Act is a big example for this. The exclusions of subject
matter provisions as well as higher patentable standards ensure
robust public domain for facilitating new inventions, thereby
protecting public interest at large. This makes Indian Pharma
companies to manufacture biosimilars early and became
pioneers in biosimilars manufacturing than any other country,
also able to come up with low cost biologics. Thus biosimilar
production at lower cost is actually protecting our public
interest especially for a country like India where medicines
are not affordable for the substantial population. The on-
going attempt to lobby through the Trans Pacific Partnership
Agreement/ Free Trade agreements, where mandatory grant
of patents on plants, animals, seed i.e., a back door entry of
exceptions given under Art 27.3 of TRIPS as a patentable
subject matter (which mandates patents on diagnostic methods
too) should be strongly defeated.[27]
Biosimilars and Challenges in India
With lapse of the patents on biological product, it will made
accessible for biosimilar product manufacturers so that one
can expect cost reduction. Biosimilars are bigger and more
intricate than the chemical drugs. As they are not the generics,
the generic approach won’t be suitable for the biosimilar
product. Many of the biopharmaceuticals produced in India
are non-innovator drugs which means not followed any
standards of biosimilars so as to qualify that status. Biobetters
are those where improvements on original non innovator
biopharmaceutical drugs are made. Biobetters include
structural changes, bi-functional targeting (with or without
a biosimilar core) or an improved formulation that may result
in an expected improvement in safety and/or efficacy.[33] They
need not qualify to be biosimilars. Biosimilars are like original
product yet not indistinguishable to the inventor product,
prompting prerequisite of the comparability testing. The
fertile area for biosimilars in India is the exclusion for biological
materials from patenting. So more chances that in case of any
suit against biosimilars they can challenge the patentability.
S41
 Raveendrashenoy: Role of Patents in Biosimilar drug development
As biosimilar maker needs to face extraordinary difficulties
in the development, clinical improvement, manufacturing,
duplication of pre-clinical and clinical studies, registration
and product marketing contrasted with customary generics,
India needs to create particular regulations/guidelines
administering biosimilar, with stringent administration.
India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organization
(CDSCO) published  Proposed Revised Guidelines on
Similar Biologics (2016) and compelling collaboration in the
middle of originator and biosimilar producer.[28] India can
become one of the key player/ maker of biosimilars by the
accomplishment of biosimilar upon the satisfactory execution
of the pharmacovigilance framework and administrative
rule while India’s pharmacovigilance framework is under
upgradation.[35] Presently, we have pharma companies
marketing biosimilar drugs as well as in collaboration with
foreign companies for biosimilar development.[35] Recently,
biopharma company  Biocon  had collaborated with the US
pharma giant Mylan for development and commercialization
of generic biologics. Dr Reddy’s Laboratories had partnered
with TR-Pharm, a start-up from Turkey, for three biosimilar
products. Aurobindo had incurred Rs. 411.89 crore towards
R&D expenses, which was around 3.5 per cent of its
revenues during the last financial year. The development of
biosimilars would be challenged by regulatory hurdles along
with the cost associated with conducting clinical trials in
various geographies along with patent infringement issues
giving way for Indian companies to become key players on
biosimilar drugs unlike United States situation.
The new biosimilar guidelines 2016 would be a relief for maker
of these drugs as it specifically calls for calling for specific post
marketing safety data “through a pre-defined single arm study
of generally, more than 200 evaluable patients and compared
to historical data of the Reference product. The study should
be completed preferably within 2 years of the marketing
permission/manufacturing license unless otherwise justified.
[29]
Also the provisions like if a product is found to be similar
“in pre-clinical, in vitro characterization having established PK
[pharmacokinetic] methods and a PD [pharmacodynamic]
that is surrogate of efficacy, the residual risk is significantly
reduced in the Phase I study if equivalence is demonstrated for
both PK and PD.[30] Phase III clinical trials of such a Similar
Biologics product may be waived where considered necessary,
an appropriate single arm study in at least 100 evaluable
subjects may be carried out in the most sensitive indication
to address any residual uncertainty.[38] Also the clinical safety
and efficacy study can be waived, noting: “In case the safety
and efficacy study is waived all the indications approved
for reference product may be granted based on comparable
quality, nonclinical as well as convincing PK/PD data.[31]
S42
Wherever the phase III trial is waived, the immunogenicity
should have been gathered in the PK/PD study and will also
need to be generated during post-approval Phase IV study.
Thus the guidelines clearly clarify the approval process of
Similar Biologics in India thereby ensuring that new, essential
and affordable Similar Biologic drugs reach the Indian
population at large making it tune with global standards.[32]
Approximately 70 biosimilar products have been approved in
India and, according to GaBI’s list, more than 25 have been
developed in India since 2000.[33] WHO has kicked off a pilot
pre-qualification program for biologic and biosimilar drugs
for 2 key biologic products – rituximab and trastuzumab, in
order to facilitate affordable access of these critical drugs in
low and middle income countries.[34] Thus proved to be a great
boon for the Indian vaccine industry in creating a common
platform for validation of products and procurement by
multiple countries, a boost for Indian biosimilars to compete
with others.
But the market penetration of Indian biosimilarseven in
Indian market are very slow. The recent Biocon/Mylan
biosimilars export to United States shows that quality wise
product differentiation done for US and Indian markets calls
for vigilance in Indian Authorities and also shows the need for
strict quality assurance in Indian markets.
CONCLUSION
The expiry of patents of biological products is a big opportunity
for Indian Pharma companies to dominate the biosimilars
market globally. The Indian generic companies proved
it in case of therapeutic drugs, now it is the time to prove
for biosimilars too. The Indian Pharma companies should
strictly comply with the biosimilar guidelines; also concerned
authorities are having the very much duty to ensure the
compliance of it. This will make Indian Pharma companies
to compete globally. By providing access to original cell lines
of the original drug manufacturer will facilitate to cut down
the cost and reduce the prices of the biosimilars drastically.
The experience of EU and United States and their success
especially EU shows the strict measures they adopted for
approval of biosimilars. The United States also shows how
different strategies can be adopted to facilitate competition
with original drug manufactures with that of biosimilars. In
India there is a need to ensure that biosimilar guidelines are
following thoroughly. In case of patents for biosimilars it
shows the difference in various jurisdictions how patentability
standards are applied and how inventive step will become a
barrier to overcome the threshold. India being a country with
weaker patent protection with biologics more opportunity for
the pharma companies to come up with quality biosimilars
in the market and dominate the globe by providing access to
biosimilars at cheaper price.
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Raveendrashenoy: Role of Patents in Biosimilar drug development
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank the reviewer and editors of the journal
for their valuable comments.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The author declare no conflict of interest.
ABBREVIATIONS
US: United States; EU: European Union; EPO: European
Patent Office; FDA: Food and Drug Administration Agency;
BPCIA: Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act;
DNA: Deoxyribonucleic acid; RBP: Reference Biological
Product; ANDA: Abbreviated New Drug Application;
RCGM: Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation;
CDSCO: Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation;
cDNA: Complementary Deoxyribonucleic acid; aBLA:
Abbreviated Biologics License Applications.
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Journal of Scientometric Res. 2020;9(2s):s44-s55
http://www.jscires.org
Webliography of Water Technology and Policy
Framework in India and the World
Deep Jyoti Francis*, Anup Kumar Das
Center for Studies in Science Policy, School of Social Science, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, INDIA.
ABSTRACT
For a long time, knowledge asymmetry has been attributed to uneven growth and
development across countries. Today, when issues of access to safe and affordable
drinking water are not only a national concern and cooperation across the world are
pushing towards sustainable goals, web portals, publication of reports by institutions
involved in international and national water technology and policy activities are
facilitating knowledge exchange. These platforms have developed indicators
to assess the water-related concerns and share best management practices,
sustainable approaches and data, making knowledge accessible for all. Also, recently
bibliometric and scientometric studies have developed tools to assess research in the
area of the water sector. This webliography is an effort to produce a comprehensive
list of activities undertaken by institutions participating in the knowledge creation and
knowledge dissemination process in the area of water internationally as well as in
India.
Keywords: Water and sanitation, Water, India, Indicators, Sustainable development
goals
INTRODUCTION
Over decades water security has emerged as a pressing issue
worldwide. Over the past 40 years, the world’s population
has doubled whereas the use of water has quadrupled.[1]
With the decrease in groundwater level water large parts of
Africa, Asia and Europe and southeast of Britain, experience
water stress or scarcity. With rising water scarcity across the
world, efforts are being taken by several international and
national organizations to make safe drinking water available
and affordable for all. The Sustainable Development Goal 6
aims at ensuring availability and sustainable management of
water and sanitation for all. In order to achieve sustainability,
Water technologies have emerged in promoting research and
development in the areas of industrial water and wastewater
management. This has called in for several science and
technological interventions in carrying out processes of water
treatment, monitoring, storage, disposal and reuse.
Ensuring access to safe and affordable drinking water is the
mandate of UN initiated Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs). In order to achieve this goal several initiatives
have been taken at national level and international level
Copyright
© The Author(s). 2020 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s)
and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if
changes were made.
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
IndiaLics Issue
Correspondence
Dr. Deep Jyoti Francis
Center for Studies in Science Policy,
School of Social Science, Jawaharlal
Nehru University, New Delhi-110067,
INDIA.
Email: deep.francis@yahoo.com
Received: 09-12-2018
Revised: 15-03-2019
Accepted: 21-03-2019
DOI: 10.5530/jscires.9.2s.35
cooperation to encourage “water efficiency and support
treatment technologies”. This article provides a webliography,
which lists the international and national water technology
and policy framework to aid this mission. Web portals
across the world seek to address the knowledge asymmetry
existing in the issues related to water issues by sharing best
management practices, promoting sustainable approaches,
offering platforms for interactive public data and information
and thereby creating awareness. On World Water Day,
March 2018, the Water, Peace and Security Initiative (WPSI),
was launched. WPSI aims at providing interventions in taking
actions on water security. Several datasets and tools have been
developed by WPSI to enable appropriate decision making.
Bibliometrics have been developed to assess the research
performance. These tools have been of immense use in the
prediction of future trends. This form of quantitative analysis
offers certain advantages in gathering objective information
required for decision making. According to Thomson Reuters,
there are two ways in which this kind of research works (a) by
offering a top-down review, this approach facilitates analysis
and data of all the activities in an area, summarizes the data
and a comprehensive perspective on activity and achievement
and (b) by offering weighted quantitative measures, such as
papers per researcher or citations per paper.­[2] While the latter
approach, analyzing water-related technology research is very
common in the area of water. No study so far has taken the
former approach and enlisted the activities and programs to
identify indicators surrounding research on water related
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 Francis and Das: Webliography of Water Technology and Policy Framework in India
technologies. Webliographies have emerged recently as a
tool to offer exhaustive details of activities and programs
initiated in an area of concerns. This webliography, thereby,
aims at providing a comprehensive picture of activities and
achievements in the area of water, both at the global and
national level.
For the latter approach to bibliometric studies, the Scopus
database1 (by Elsevier) and Web of Science (by Clarivate
Analytics) have been considered rich data sources. Though
bibliometric studies have been carried out in the area of
water,[3-6] Hu et al. have carried out a historical review of
publications on drinking water research between 1991 and
2007.[4] Hu et al. have criticized the bibliometric study as the
change in citation and publication counts of a country cannot
be held as a true indicator of research or research development
or the future research orientation. This study, therefore, takes
a closer look at the emphasis laid on water-related research
globally and in India by studying the several web-portals,
databases, digital libraries and monographs. Studies on water-
related technology have been carried out worldwide level as
is evident from Table 1, bibliometric studies carried out in
the area of the water-related research field. In this Table, we
also represent the number of citations each paper has received
in Google Scholar, Web of Science and Scopus. L Zhang
et al. carried out a bibliometric analysis of wetland research
during 1991-2008 based on the Science Citation Index
(SCI).[7] The emphasis in these researches was on the water
quality, biodiversity, constructed wetland diversity. Fu et al.
carried out a bibliometric analysis based on the Science
Citation Index Expanded from the Web of Science to study
the research activities in the area of global drinking water from
1992 to 2011.[6] Water Research, Environmental Science and
Technology and Journal American Water Works Association
were the three most common journals in drinking water
research. The authors also identified the mainstream research
emphases was water treatment methods, disinfection process
ozonization and chlorination in disinfection and adsorption
was identified to be the most common techniques for treating
drinking water. Sun et al. carried out a bibliometric analysis
on Science Citation Index-Expanded published by the
Thomson Reuters of the global estuary pollution research
between 1991 to 2010.[8] Marine Pollution Bulletin was the
most active journal publishing in this area. Sediment was
the most active research besides heavy metals received a
stable focus on a high degree in the field of estuary pollution
research. Mostly refractory organic compounds (e.g., PAHs),
Biomarkers, bioaccumulation and Eutrophication of estuarine
waters received high emphasis in the area of estuary pollution
research. Such emphasis on water related research over the
1 Scopus covers more that 36000 titles from more than 11000 publishers,
including subject area of life sciences, social sciences, physical sciences and health
sciences.
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
last decade motivates us to take a closer look at the local,
national as well as transnational initiatives of resource creation
to support the research in the areas. For the study, the paper
has been divided into four sections. Section 2 gives a brief
outline of what can encompass water technologies. Section 3
we discuss the methodology adopted for the study. In Sections
4 and 5, we discuss the various water related initiatives at both
the international and national level.
Defining Water Technologies
UN-Water defines water security as “The capacity of a
population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate
quantities of acceptable quality water for sustaining livelihoods,
human well-being and socio-economic development, for
ensuring protection against water-borne pollution and water-
related disasters and for preserving ecosystems in a climate
of peace and political stability”.[9] In order to achieve this,
security countries across the world are investing in scientific
R&D to come out with innovative technologies to resolve
water-related issues. Besides this, according to UN Water[9]
achieving water security requires good governance practices;
and collaboration across sectors, communities, disciplines and
political borders; reduced risk of potential conflicts over water
resources and innovative sources of financing.
The technology comprises “any systematic, goal-directed
procedures that go beyond unstructured, elementary
actions”.[10] Technology in a most simple manner can be
comprehended in terms of four closely interlinked elements:
technique, knowledge the organization of the production and
the product.[11] In this sense, water technology can be defined
as techniques, knowledge, organization and products that can
resolve water-related issues. This paper is organized on the
basis of different international and national water technologies
for industrial water and wastewater management.
Methodology
The Millennium Development Goals and the UN-SDGs
identify water as a crucial issue. Following this, nations
worldwide have launched water missions and corroborated
research on water, sanitation and related subject areas. The
objective of this webliography is to highlight the various
knowledge resources generated in the areas of water
technology-related research and development. We look into
the international activities and programs in water research
which have aimed at developing indicators for assessing and
forecasting. We then take the case of India and highlight
the resources and emphasis of research in the last decade as a
consequence of the Sustainable Development Goals.
In the year 2005, the Government of India established the
National Health Mission and introduced structural reforms
to strengthen healthcare and sanitation. The Government
consequently launched the Swachh Bharat programme (Clean
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 Francis and Das: Webliography of Water Technology and Policy Framework in India

Table 1: Top 20 Scientometric and Bibliometric Studies Related to Water

Paper GSC WoS Scopus
Zhang L, Wang MH, Hu J, Ho YS. A review of published wetland research, 1991–2008: ecological 116 76 86
engineering and ecosystem restoration. Ecological Engineering. 2010;36(8):973-80.
Fu HZ, Wang MH, Ho YS. Mapping of drinking water research: A bibliometric analysis of 112 74 86
research output during 1992–2011. Science of the Total Environment. 2013;443:757-65.
Sun J, Wang MH, Ho YS. A historical review and bibliometric analysis of research on estuary 77 43 47
pollution. Marine Pollution Bulletin. 2012;64(1):13-21.
Hu J, Ma Y, Zhang L, Gan F, Ho YS. A historical review and bibliometric analysis of research 76 38 45
on lead in drinking water field from 1991 to 2007. Science of the Total Environment.
2010;408(7):1738-44.
Wang MH, Yu TC, Ho YS. A bibliometric analysis of the performance of Water Research. 75 52 59
Scientometrics. 2010;84(3):813-20.
Ruaro R, Gubiani ÉA. A scientometric assessment of 30 years of the Index of Biotic Integrity in 70 29 46
aquatic ecosystems: applications and main flaws. Ecological Indicators. 2013;29:105-10.
Butcher J, Jeffrey P. The use of bibliometric indicators to explore industry–academia 67 31 36
collaboration trends over time in the field of membrane use for water treatment. Technovation.
2005;25(11):1273-80.
Wang MH, Li J, Ho YS. Research articles published in water resources journals: A bibliometric 65 43 46
analysis. Desalination and Water Treatment. 2011;28(1-3):353-65.
Ho YS. Bibliometric analysis of biosorption technology in water treatment research from 1991 to 59 31 35
2004. International Journal of Environment and pollution. 2008;34(1-4):1-3.
Khan MA, Ho YS. Arsenic in drinking water: a review on toxicological effects, mechanism of 48 25 32
accumulation and remediation. Asian Journal of Chemistry. 2011;23(5):1889.
Tanaka H, Ho YS. Global trends and performances of desalination research. Desalination and 48 29 31
Water Treatment. 2011;25(1-3):1-2.
Zhang W, Qian W, Ho YS. A bibliometric analysis of research related to ocean circulation. 39 32 34
Scientometrics. 2009;80(2):305-16.
Hassan SU, Haddawy P, Zhu J. A bibliometric study of the world’s research activity in sustainable 34 14 19
development and its sub-areas using scientific literature. Scientometrics. 2014;99(2):549-79.
Zheng T, Wang J, Wang Q, Nie C, Smale N, Shi Z, Wang X. A bibliometric analysis of industrial 21 13  0
wastewater research: current trends and future prospects. Scientometrics. 2015;105(2):863-82.
Yuan J, Yue W, Su C, Wu Z, Ma Z, Pan Y, Ma N, Hu Z, Shi F, Yu Z, Wu Y. Patent activity on water 17 9 9
pollution and treatment in China—a scientometric perspective. Scientometrics. 2010;83(3):639-
51.
Abejón R, Garea A. A bibliometric analysis of research on arsenic in drinking water during the 11 6 13
1992–2012 period: An outlook to treatment alternatives for arsenic removal. Journal of Water
Process Engineering. 2015;6:105-19.
Wang MH, Ho YS. Research articles and publication trends in environmental sciences from 1998 6 0 0
to 2009. Archives of Environmental Science. 2011;5:1-0.
Zhang L, Li S, Loáiciga HA, Zhuang Y, Du Y. Opportunities and challenges of interbasin water 6 5 4
transfers: a literature review with bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics. 2015;105(1):279-94.
Jacobs IM, Pouris A, Naidoo D. A scientometric examination of the performance of water 4 3 0
research in South Africa. Water SA. 2014;40(4):631-8.
Zare F, Elsawah S, Iwanaga T, Jakeman AJ, Pierce SA. Integrated water assessment and 4 2 2
modelling: A bibliometric analysis of trends in the water resource sector. Journal of Hydrology.
2017;552:765-78.
As on 21.06.2018

India Mission) targeting the issue of health and well-being
linked with that of adequate water supply and functional
sanitation systems. In India, the Mihir Shah Committee Report
was placed in July 2016 that recommended the restructuring
the Central Water Commission (CWC) and the Central
Ground Water Board (CGWB)2 with a function to deal with
water policy, data and governance. India over the decade
2 The CWC was established in 1945 and is responsible for surface water and
creating storage structures such as dams and medium scale reservoirs. Similarly,
the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) has the objective of managing the
groundwater resources.

S46 Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Francis and Das: Webliography of Water Technology and Policy Framework in India
has initiated several water technology-related knowledge
resources.
At the national level, we observe several institutions
participating in developing indicators for water technology
and surrounding issues. Equal access to essential health, clean
water and sanitation services continue to be a priority for India,
which houses one-sixth of the world’s population. Shiao et al.
argues that India is one of the most water-challenged countries
in the world. Groundwater levels are falling.[12] Whatever water
is available is often severely polluted. And the national supply
of water predicted to fall 50 percent below demand by 2030.
Over the last two decades, we observe a number of movements
around water in India. In the section that follows we discuss
the institutions engaged in developing indicators and carrying
out assessments in water-related technology. Keeping in mind
the objectives of the study, several international and national
institutions functioning to support the missions surrounding
water. While doing so, we look up to (i) the efforts taken by
these institutions in publishing findings and reports of their
study (ii) publications related to technological development
and innovation in the area of water. Many of these institutions
have also developed and maintain repositories of data related
to water; this study also highlights such databases. Recently
the “Composite Water Management Index (CWMI): A Tool
for Water Management” was introduced in India in 2018 by
the NITI Aayog as a set of indicators for addressing India’s
suffering from the worst water crisis in its history, to enable
data-backed water management and to promote competitive,
cooperative federalism in the country.
Global and Country-Specific Initiatives
Databases
The European Environment Agency (eea.europa.eu)
The European Environment Agency (EEA) provides access to
datasets, infographics, indicators, interactive data, interactive
static maps as well as graphs. It is a prominent repository for
indicators on wide range of water related issues such as usage
of freshwater resources to urban wastewater treatment and
water- and food-borne diseases. Some of its databases are-
a. Waterbase: It is the generic name given to the EEA’s
databases on the status and quality of Europe’s rivers,
lakes, groundwater bodies and transitional, coastal
and marine waters, on the quantity of Europe’s water
resources and on the emissions to surface waters from
point and diffuse sources of pollution.
b. UWWTD (Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive
– reported data): UWWTD concerns the collection,
treatment and discharge of urban waste water and the
treatment and discharge of waste water from certain
industrial sectors.
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
c. Copernicus Land Monitoring Service: This service
provides an EU-Hydro for the EEA member and
cooperating countries. It provides a photo-interpreted
river network, consisting of surface interpretation of
water bodies and a modeled drainage network with
catchments and drainage lines.
EEA’s web portal is a major information source for those
involved in developing, adopting, implementing and
evaluating environmental policy and also the general public.
USGS National Water Information System (water.usgs.
gov): The United States Geological Survey (USGS) offers
real-time open data on Water and historical data through
the National Water Information System (NWIS). Some
of the assessment tools available here are WaterWatch,
GroundWater Watch, WaterQualityWatch, WaterNow,
WaterAlert, NWIS Current Water data (Real-Time Data) and
USGS Mobile Water Data. The tools can be explored at Usgs.
gov/products/data-and-tools/data-and-tools-topics/water.
Atlas of Environmental Justice (Ejatlas.org): The
environmental justice atlas documents and catalogues
social conflict around environmental issues. This data set is
made available under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license. The
EJOLT (Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilities
and Trade, www.ejolt.org) highlights the environmental
injustices and conflicts across the world. EJOLT is a global
research project bringing science and society together to
catalogue and analyze ecological distribution conflicts and
confront environmental injustice. Water remains an important
issue under consideration and water management as source
of conflict. Water-related injustices and conflicts across the
world can be found on www.ejolt.org/tag/water. In 2015
the project released “Global Atlas of Environmental Justice”
which enables global tracking of ecological conflicts. About
378 cases are reported related to water management issues on
Ejatlas.org portal as in March 2019.
Sustainable-Water-Infrastructure (Epa.gov/sustainable-
water-infrastructure): The United States Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) provides grants for state
environmental programs, non-profits, educational institution.
EPA maintains database such as, Drinking Water Treatability
Database (TDB), Water Infrastructure Database (WATERiD),
Stream-Catchment (StreamCat) Dataset.
a. The TDB presents referenced information on the control
of contaminants in drinking water. This database
houses performance evaluation data for rehabilitation
technologies used in the water and wastewater sectors
on a national basis, the databases can also assist utilities
to more effectively implement comprehensive asset
management, provide reliable service to their customers
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and meet their Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking
Water Act requirements.
b. WATERiD is a database used for helping utilities
choose the best pipe rehabilitation, condition assessment
and pipe-location determining technologies for
both wastewater conveyance systems and drinking
water distribution systems. It includes primary
information about individual renewal technologies’
cost and performance, case studies for their real-world
applications and the list of vendors, consultants and
contractors available for a particular technology on
a regional basis. The database allows utilities to input
their experiences in these areas for the benefit of other
utilities.
c. Freshwater Biological Traits Database (Traits)
contains traits data for 3,857 North American
macroinvertebrate taxa and includes habitat, life history,
mobility, morphology and ecological trait data, along
with tolerance calculations for temperature and flow.
Data types vary and include binary, categorical and text
notes entries.
d. StreamCat is an extensive collection of landscape
metrics for 2.6 million streams and associated catchments
within the conterminous U.S. It includes both natural
and human-related landscape features. The data are
summarized both for individual stream catchments and
for cumulative upstream watersheds.
The dataset also provides metrics for the number of dataset
views in catalog.data.gov month by month beginning
from 2014.
2. OECD Studies on Water (Oecd-ilibrary.org/
environment/oecd-studies-on-water_22245081): OECD
iLibrary is the online library of the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
which encompasses books, papers and data. The institution
has published reports encompassing indicators on
various dimensions of water. Some of these publications
include: “Implementing the OECD Principles on
Water Governance: Indicator Framework and Evolving
Practices” (2018, https://bit.ly/2Jdpfin), “Water Utility
Performance Indicators (IBNET)” (2011, https://bit.
ly/2CgQpPi), “OECD Inventory: Water Governance
Indicators and Measurement Frameworks” (2015, https://
bit.ly/2Fc3s6s).
3. The Alaska Hydrological Survey (dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/
water/hydro/components/water-databases): The Alaska
Hydrologic Survey maintains several public information
databases, in various formats. These databases are Alaska
Groundwater Database, AKWUDS (The Alaska Water
Use Data System), WELTS, ARID, STREAMS, LAKES
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and Water Quality. We discuss these databases in brief
here.
a. Alaska Groundwater Database provides indicators
of groundwater collected by local, state and federal
cooperative partners.
b. The Alaska Water Use Data System (AKWUDS) offers
online water use report system/database. This platform
offers a two-way space for water right/authorization
holders to submit monthly water use data online and at
the same time allows them to download data entered here.
c. The Alaska Well Log Tracking System (WELTS) offers
online water use report system/database for water well
logs. This platform allows water well drillers to submit
water well logs online and at the same time allows them
to download data entered in the system.
d. ARID database is a summary of stream characteristics
resulting from an initial investigation into navigable
streams within the state. The database has continued to
grow as new data becomes available.
e. Streams provides a compilation of discrete discharge
measurements conducted by Division of Mining, Land
and Water personnel.
f. Lakes is a compilation of lake data gathered during
specific field projects within the state.
g. Water Quality is an index to water quality data collected
by Hydrologic Survey staff.
Programmes
1. UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme
(IHP) (En.unesco.org/themes/water-security): UNESCO
works to build the scientific knowledge base to help
countries manage their water resources in a sustainable
way through the International Hydrological Programme
(IHP), through leading the UN-wide World Water
Development Report and through numerous Centres
and Chairs on water around the world. UNESCO.
The International Hydrological Programme (IHP) is
the intergovernmental programme of the UN system
devoted to water research, water resources management
and education and capacity building. Some of the recent
publications of IHP include: “International Glossary
of Hydrology” (2012, https://bit.ly/2u7jAQl), “HP-
VIII: Water Security: Responses to Local Regional and
Global Challenges (2014-2021)” (2013, https://bit.
ly/2O2K9zk), “Water, People and Cooperation: 50 Years
of Water Programmes for Sustainable Development
at UNESCO” (2015, https://bit.ly/2O3ev4J). Water-
related Centres under the patronage of UNESCO work
on relevant thematic and geographic priorities in their
areas of expertise. UNESCO has appointed water-
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 Francis and Das: Webliography of Water Technology and Policy Framework in India

related UNESCO Chairs on seven key issues namely, (1)
Water-related Disasters and Hydrological Changes, (2)
Groundwater in a Changing Environment, (3) Water
Scarcity and Quality (4) Water and Human Settlements
of the Future, (5) Ecohydrology, Engineering Harmony
for a Sustainable World, (6) Water Education, Key to
Water Security, (7) Water and Gender and (8) Water and
Culture.
2. World Bank Water Program (Worldbank.org/
water | Twitter.com/WorldBankWater): The World
Bank Water team is working with partners toward “A
Water-Secure World for All”. Some of its recent reports
include: “Timor-Leste: Water Sector Assessment and
Roadmap” (2018, https://bit.ly/2UCDwGm), “Joining
Forces for Better Services? When, Why and How Water
and Sanitation Utilities Can Benefit from Working
Together” (2017, https://bit.ly/2Hj9Viq). The World
Development Indicators (WDI) is the World Bank’s
collection of statistics on global development. WDI offers
1,600 indicators for 217 economies, for over 50 years.
Particularly, WDI came along with the monitoring of
27 indicators related to Sustainable Development Goal 6
(Clean Water and Sanitation) (https://bit.ly/2HjaA3d).
3. WHO’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
Programme (Who.int/water_sanitation_health/en/):
The World Health Organization (WHO) works on
aspects of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) where
the health burden is high and where evidence-based
inventions could make a major difference. WHO along
with WASH has developed indicators for drinking water
and for achieving quality water, sanitation and hygiene
services in healthcare. Some of the important publications
include: “WHO Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Strategy
2018-2025” (2018), (https://bit.ly/2TKLn7L), “A Global
Overview of National Regulations and Standards for
Drinking Water Quality” (2018, https://bit.ly/2XWzJGc),
“A Practical Guide to Auditing Water Safety Plans” (2015,
https://bit.ly/2Ck1Khv), “Guidelines for Drinking-Water
Quality” (2011, 4th Edition, https://bit.ly/2FdomlJ).
4. The Water Hub Stories (Thewaterhub.org): The HSBC
Water Programme aims to provide and protect water
sources, inform and educate communities in need and
enable people to prosper, driving economic development
across the world. WaterHub is an internationally
acclaimed exhibition of select images and stories from
across six countries from four continents, depicting the
world’s global water crisis.
5. IUCN Water Knowledge Platform (Waterandnature.
org | Twitter.com/IUCN_Water): The International
Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) formed the
Global Water Programme in 1985 that maintains the
IUCN Water Knowledge Platform. The Mission of the
Programme is to be a trusted partner for evidence-based
and adaptive change in water resource management that
benefits nature and people. This portal offers evidence-
based online resources for implementing integrated water
resources management (IWRM) using an ecosystems
approach and for building partnerships for water
infrastructure innovation in the Water-Energy-Food
security nexus.
Web-resources and important publications
1. The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement
of Hydrologic Science (Cuahsi.org | Twitter.com/
CUAHSI): CUAHSI is a research organization
representing more than 130 U.S. universities and
international water science-related organizations. The
website is one stop to link to water-related web and data
portals. These web portals have developed indicators on
a variety of themes, ranging from water resources, water
use, irrigation and drainage, waste water to institutional
frameworks. Some of their cluster data portals (can be
accessed from Cuahsi.org/data-models/portals/) include:
Africa Water Sector and Sanitation Monitoring and
Reporting, Aquastat, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology:
Data (CEH), CUAHSI Data Services (CUAHSI),
Earth2Observe Water Cycle Integrator (WCI), Eurostat
Water Statistics, beside many others.
2. Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council
(WSSCC) (Wsscc.org): WSSCC is a United Nations
membership organization that advocates for improved
sanitation and hygiene for the most vulnerable and
marginalized people around the world. This organization
has developed various indicators to monitor the Water
and sanitation-related WASH programs. Some of its
recent publications include “Scoping and Diagnosis of the
Global Sanitation Fund’s Approach to Equality and Non-
Discrimination” (2017, https://bit.ly/2F3W23P), “Public
Funding for Sanitation: The Many Faces of Sanitation
Subsidies” (2009, https://bit.ly/2uaJS44), “Global
Sanitation Fund: Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion in
Madagascar” (2015, https://bit.ly/2TCVbBt).
3. Water World (Waterworld.com): Water World
facilitates knowledge sharing in three different domains:
(a) WaterWorld Magazine, (b) Industrial WaterWorld
and (c) Water and Wastewater International. WaterWorld
Magazine, published monthly, delivers updated
information on technology, products and trends in the
water and wastewater industry. The editorials cover a wide
range of topics covering - energy management, biosolids
treatment and disposal, chemicals, pipe maintenance
and repairs, stormwater management, computers and
automation technology, corrosion control and glances to

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industry events. Industrial WaterWorld serves management,
operation, engineering and consulting professionals in
the industrial process water and wastewater industry.
Industrial reports generated by this organization
provides the news and product and service information
necessary for successful planning, designing, operations
and maintenance of industrial water systems. Water and
Wastewater International caters to water industry around
the world, reporting on the latest news, technologies and
projects of interest to a global water audience.
4. Water Technology (Water-technology.net): Water
Technology website services entails latest news, views
and project information from the water industry across
the world, covering industrial and municipal wastewater
treatment and water supply and transmission. Water
Technology brings together chief engineers and
technologists working in the area of water. It also works
along with an active network of journalists worldwide to
collect information on the emerging issues that could be
useful for experts and professionals.
5. STEPS Centre (Steps-centre.org): The ESRC STEPS
Centre (Social, Technological and Environmental
Pathways to Sustainability) in the United Kingdom carries
out interdisciplinary global research uniting development
studies with science and technology studies to reduce
poverty and bring about social justice. The website
provides a concept note “Water, Waste and Sustainable
Cities in India” (2015, https://bit.ly/2O2SYJq), a briefing
“Liquid Dynamics: Accessing Water and Sanitation in an
Uncertain Age” (2009, https://bit.ly/2O1nFi6), a research
article “Towards a Peri-Urban Political Ecology of Water
Quality Decline” (2016, https://bit.ly/2TNYoNI), besides
several others.
6. The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
(Nerc.ac.uk): NERC flagship database Water Research
Directory UK (Wskep.net/index.php/waterruk/) offers
a broad searchable list of individuals active in water
research. Also, it elaborates on their expertise and contact
details thereby enabling knowledge sharing among
actors. NERC also maintains a database called WaterR2B.
WaterR2B is a repository of case studies highlighting
a significant number of businesses that are benefiting
from the UK’s past spending on water-related research.
NERC has developed tools for impact assessment around
environment and water quality in the public as well as
private sector, through an evaluation report titled “Water
as a Resource” in 2016 In 2014 UK National Ecosystem
Assessment Follow-on’ (UK NEAFO) provided new
information and developed tools for monitoring biological
effects of fresh and seawater pollution.
S50
7. The International Water Management Institute (Iwmi.
org): IWMI is a CGIAR center focused on research for
development to deliver new evidence-based approaches
that address key water-related challenges. The Water
Data Portal (WDP, WaterData.iwmi.org), following
“one-stop shop” approach, provides access to a large
amount of data related to water and agriculture. WDP
contains meteorological, hydrological, socio-economic,
spatial data layer, satellite images as well as hydrological
model setups. Some of the important tool developed by
this institute for assessment and forecasting are Drought
Monitoring System, Flood Risk Mapping, Irrigated Area
Mapping: Asia and Africa, Online Irrigation Benchmark
Services and the Water Data Portal. The institution has
also developed indicators on water stress that has been
published in “Incorporating Environmental Flows into
‘Water Stress’ Indicator 6.4.2: Guidelines for a Minimum
Standard Method for Global Reporting” (2019, https://
bit.ly/2ClvV83). Some of its recent publications include:
“Resource Recovery from Waste: Business Models for
Energy, Nutrient and Water Reuse in Low- and Middle-
Income Countries” (2018, https://bit.ly/2JbHQez),
“Pricing Reforms for Sustainable Water Use and
Management in the Philippines” (2018, https://bit.
ly/2O5SYZd). Its other categories of publications include
research reports, working papers, journal articles and
policy briefs.
India-Specific Initiatives
a) Databases
1. Central Ground Water Board (www.cgwb.gov.in |
Twitter.com/CGWB_CHQ): Central Ground Water
Board is a statutory organization under Ministry of Jal
Shakti, Government of India. The Board releases Ground
water year book at State and National level data, State and
District groundwater profiles, Ground water assessment
reports, maps on major aquifers in India which are
important for assessing the water scenario in India.
2. Water Technology Initiative, Department of Science
and Technology, Government of India (Dst.gov.in/
water-technology-initiative-programme-wti): Water
Technology Initiative, initiated in August 2007 aims to
promote R&D activities aimed at providing safe drinking
water at affordable cost and in adequate quantity using
appropriate Science and Technology interventions
evolved through indigenous efforts. In pursuance of
directives of Hon’ble Supreme Court, Technology
Mission on Winning, Augmentation and Renovation
(WAR) for Water has been launched in August 2009 to
undertake research-led solutions, through a coordinated
approach, to come out with technological options for
various water challenges in different parts of the country.
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 Francis and Das: Webliography of Water Technology and Policy Framework in India
A national-level think-tank the Technology Information,
Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) is affiliated
to DST, which is responsible for carrying out technology
impact assessments, aiming to discover the probable
implications and consequences. TIFAC is also involved in
technology forecasting and assessment of water projects
in a systematic and continuing basis.
3. India Water Portal (Indiawaterportal.org): India
Water Portal is a prominent website, which provides
unparalleled resources such as reports, data, news, events,
opportunities and discussions pertaining water. The
platform encourages sharing experiences and solutions. It
highlights the recent publications on the related subjects
published in the country. It is a one stop gateway to
sanitation portal, school water portal, Hindi water portal
and Conflict water portal.
4. India Environment Portal (Indiaenvironmentportal.
org.in): This open-source platform shares the proprietary
information by Centre for Science and Environment
(CSE). The statistics provided by this portal aims at
portraying the environmental diversity and change in
environment condition across time and location.
5. India Sanitation Portal (Indiasanitationportal.org):
The India Sanitation Portal is an open, inclusive, web-
based platform for sharing sanitation knowledge amongst
practitioners and the general public. It aims to draw on
the rich experience of sanitation-sector experts, package
their knowledge and add value to it through technology
and then disseminate it to a larger audience through the
internet.
6. Water-related Technologies documented in National
Innovation Foundation’s Database (Nif.org.in, Nif.
org.in/water_related_technologies): The NIF database
encompasses the water-related grassroot innovation
technologies for water conservation, waste water
treatment, water filtration using indigenous methods.
NIF publishes Award Books annually, Festival of Innovation
Book (2015 and 2016), India Innovates (2013).
7. The Energy and Resources Institute (Teriin.org):
TERI is a leading think tank dedicated to conducting
research for sustainable development of India and the
Global South. It has an online directory of its recent
publications in the area of water. TERI maintains the
IndiaEnergyPortal.org, the ENVIS Centre on Renewable
Energy and Environment (Terienvis.nic.in), TERI
Energy and Environment Data Diary and Yearbook
(TEDDY), Teri Information Digest on Energy and
Environment (TIDEE), TerraGreen (a monthly magazine
on environmental issues). Some of its published books on
water include: “Soil and Groundwater Pollution from
Agricultural Activities” (2006), “Hydro-politics in
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
GBM Basin: The Case of Bangladesh-India Water
Relations” (2015), “Municipal Water and Waste Water
Treatment” (2006) and “Water: Why It Matters”
(2012).
8. Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation
(http://www.cswcrtiweb.org/): Indian Institute of Soil and
Water Conservation is a research network for developing
location-specific technologies in the area of soil and
water conservation. It provides services like consultancy,
training Library and database on the area areas of soil and
conservation. Some of the research programs carried by this
institute are on water erosion appraisal in different agro-
ecological area, watershed hydrology for conservation
planning and integrated watershed management for socio
economic growth and policy advocacy. The organization
releases biannual newsletters in the issues of soil and water
conservation.
b. Programs
1. NITI Aayog (Niti.gov.in | Twitter.com/NITIAayog):
NITI Aayog is a policy think tank of the Government
of India, established in 2015, replacing the Planning
Commission of India. Here NITI stands for the National
Institution for Transforming India (NITI). In June 2018,
NITI Aayog released its flagship publication “Composite
Water Management Index (CWMI): A Tool for Water
Management” (2018, https://bit.ly/2MARNCP). CWMI
sought to enable data-backed water management in the
country and promote competitive, cooperative federalism.
The objectives of CWMI are to (i) “Establish a clear
baseline and benchmark for state-level performance on
key water indicators, (ii) Uncover and explain how states
have progressed on water issues over time, including
identifying high performers and under-performers,
thereby inculcating a culture of constructive competition
among states and (iii) Identify areas for deeper engagement
and investment on the part of the states”.
2. Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India (Mowr.gov.
in): Ministry of Jal Shakti is responsible for formulating
the policy guidelines and programs for the development
and regulation of country’s water resources. Some of the
recent national programmes launched by the Ministry
include (i) R&D Programme in Water Sector: The
organizations involved in R&D in water sector under the
Ministry are Central Water Commission (CWC), Central
Soil and Material Research Station, Central Water and
Power Research Station, National Institute of Hydrology
(NIH), Indian National Committee on Surface Water
(INCSW) and Indian National Committee on Ground
Water (INCGW). (ii) Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee
Yojana (PMKSY), launched in 2016, PMKSY aims at
improving water efficiency on farm and expanding
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irrigation ensured water area. https://pmksy.gov.in/
AboutPMKSY.aspx. (iii) Interlinking of Rivers (ILR)
Programme: Under this Programme, the key projects
include the Ken–Betwa, Damanganga-Pinjal, Par-Tapi-
Narmada, Mahanadi–Godavari, Manas-Sankosh-Teesta-
Ganga rivers linking covering Pan India in different
phases (https://bit.ly/2T5dIRJ). (iv) National Hydrology
Project (NHP) (Nhp.mowr.gov.in): The project aims at
improving the accessibility and quality of water and lays
special emphasis on enhancing the water management
institutions. (v) National Mission for Clean Ganga
(Nmcg.nic.in | Twitter.com/cleanganganmcg): National
Mission for Clean Ganga launched the Vision Ganga, in
December 2017, in collaboration with Centre for Ganga
River Basin Management and Studies (cGanga). NMCG
accomplishes the mandate of National Ganga River
Basin Authority (NGRBA). NMCG aims at ensuring
reduction in pollution and rejuvenating the river Ganga.
This project also aims at sustaining water quality and
environmentally sustainable of the river Ganga. The
salient features of “Vision Ganga” include: “Apply modern
science and technology in conjunction with traditional
wisdom”. National Mission for Clean Ganga recently
published several magazines under the section e-patrika
titled Namami Ganga Corporate Social Responsibility
(2017), Ganga Viskharopan Saptah (2017) and Ganga Swach
Sankalp Diwas (2017). Some of the recent reports by
MOWR include: More Crop and Income Per Drop of Water
(2006, https://bit.ly/2Hz04o0), On the Spot Study of Water
Situation in Drought Affected Areas of the Country (2016,
https://bit.ly/2ObqWM9). CWC has been engaged
in activities of collection, storage and dissemination
of  statistical data along with developing indicators for
carrying out assessments of water conditions in India.
CWC statistical data on water are published in Integrated
Hydrological Data book (2015, 2016 and 2017) and Water
and Related Statistics (2013). NIH, maintains a web based
information system and has developed indicators on five
different area of water ranging from a) water quality of
the Ganga and its tributaries, b) hydrological cycle, c)
Himalayan snow cover information syatem, d) Indus snow
cover Information system and e) Web Enabled Ground
Water Recharge Estimation Model (WE-GWREM).
3. National Rural Drinking Water Programme
(NRDWP) (www.mdws.gov.in | Twitter.com/NRDWP_
MDWS): The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation
(presently Ministry of Jal Shakti), Government of India
launched two programs of national significance- the
National Rural Drinking Water Program (NRDWP)
for rural drinking water supply and the Swachh Bharat
Mission (Gramin) [SBM (G)] for sanitation in the country.
Indiawater.gov.in/IMISReports/ provides reports on
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financial progress report, physical progress report of this
mission and case studies on water important for decision
making.
4. UNICEF India’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
(WASH) Programme (Unicef.in/Sections/6/WASH |
Twitter.com/ToiletICO): The UNICEF initiated WASH
supports the Indian national and state governments in
developing and implementing a range of models for
sanitation, hygiene and water supply. Some of the recent
reports by UNICEF-WASH include SAWM INDIA and
UNICEF partner for stories on adolescents across India
(2017).
5. India’s Water and Sanitation Crisis (Water.org/our-
impact/india/): Water.Org provides two basic solutions
to bridge the water accessibility gap through its two
initiatives, (a) WaterCredit Initiative® for those who
need access to affordable financing and resources to make
household water and sanitation solutions a reality and
(b) WaterEquity to provide more funds for water and
sanitation loans.
c. Web-resources and publications
1. UN in India: Health, Water and Sanitation (In.
one.un.org/health-water-and-sanitation/): Under the
health water and sanitation mission, UN has taken the
initiative to support the Indian government in achieving
the goal of National Health policy 2017. Some of its
highlighted publications include: “Integrated Approaches
for Sustainable Development Goals Planning: The Case
of Goal 6 on Water and Sanitation” (2017, http://bit.
ly/2Y08LNZ) and “Global Strategy for Public Health:
Public Health HIV and Reproductive Health-Food
Security and Nutrition Water Sanitation and Hygiene
(Wash) A UNHCR Strategy 2014-2018” (2016, https://
bit.ly/2VYU6R8).
2. WASH-Legislators’ Forum (Clraindia.org | Twitter.
com/washlf): WASH-LF was launched on 28 April 2015
along with the technical support from UNICEF India. It
is a unique legislative forum initiated by the Centre for
Legislative Research and Advocacy (CLRA) advocating
the issue of water, sanitation and hygiene in India.
The Forum released publications such as “Sanitation
in Maharashtra: A Policy Profile” (2014, https://bit.
ly/2Ckd6SF) and “Maharashtra City Factsheets on
Sanitation” (2014, https://bit.ly/2TKWQUR).
3. Water Solutions (a consortium of dedicated scientists,
well known for their expertise in groundwater sector for
exploration) (Watersolutions.net.in): Water Solutions is
an association with expertise in groundwater sector for
exploration, assessment, development and management,
including artificial recharge and rain water harvesting in
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 Francis and Das: Webliography of Water Technology and Policy Framework in India
varied hydrogeological environment. The recent posts
on its blog include: “Implementation of Sustainable
Water Harvesting Techniques is the Need of the Hour”,
“Implement Water Management Strategies Now to Avoid
Water Anarchy” and “Rainwater Harvesting: Contribute
Your Bit for a Bright Future”.
4. WaterAid India (Wateraidindia.in): WaterAid works
with a vision of creating a “world where everyone has
access to safe water and sanitation.”  It publishes reports
and briefs on policies and practices in water, which include
“The Water Gap: The State of the World’s Water 2018”
(2018, https://bit.ly/2VWEZrm), “State of Urban Water
Supply in India” (2018, https://bit.ly/2F0gTVT), “Out of
Order: The State of the World’s Toilets 2017 (https://bit.
ly/2JcJOLM), besides others.
5. India-UK Water Centre (Iukwc.org | Twitter.com/
IndiaUKWater): The aim of the India-UK Water Centre
is to promote cooperation and collaboration between
NERC-MoES water security research. The virtual
India-UK Water Centre (IUKWC) is a brainchild of a
collaboration between the two countries and address
significant water availability and sustainable water
management issues in both the UK and India. Some of
its publications include an approach to strategic industry
partnerships, guides and leaflets aimed at members of
the NERC research and science community. Their
publications include a series of “Water Briefs” that aimed
at providing a concise overview of the current state
of water science in the UK and India. The Centre has
several projects under it to map the soil moisture status
and mapping and quantification of dominant interactions
and feedbacks between human activities. The Centre
carries out time to time workshops, research exchange
programs, grassroots field exposure sessions, webinars and
user engagement activities.
6. Centre for Science and Environment (CSE, Cseindia.
org | Twitter.com/CSEINDIA): CSE is a leading not-for-
profit public interest research and advocacy organisation
based in New Delhi, established in 1980. It publishes a
fortnightly magazine “Down to Earth” in English and
Hindi, an annual “State of India’s Environment” and
many occasional monographs on water conservation,
water stress and rainwater harvesting. It also maintains
three environment-related web portals namely,
IndiaEnvironmentPortal.org.in, RainwaterHarvesting.
org, GreenClearanceWatch.org and DownToEarth.org.
in.
7. Arghyam India (Arghyam.org | Twitter.com/
arghyamindia): It is a philanthropic organisation
working on groundwater and sanitation across India.
The organization carries out assessment programs of
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
urban water and sanitation. It has developed indicators
for sewered and non-sewered cities. Besides this, the
organization has also GIS-based Slum Information
System Tools for Decision Making. This institution
generates sanitation case summaries and reports on
waste water treatment plants, urban water management
and water quality management. Arghyam maintains the
IndiaWaterPortal.org, IndiaSanitationPortal.org, the
Schools Water Portal (Schools.indiawaterportal.org) and
Water Conflicts Portal (Conflicts.indiawaterportal.org).
Some of the important publications of Arghyam include:
“A Framework for Rural Drinking Water Quality
Management: Collating Experiences from the Voluntary
Sector” (2012, https://bit.ly/1ctRCyD) and “An Approach
to Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM): The
Mulbagal Experience” (2012, https://bit.ly/2u8nJ6x).
8. Sulabh International (Sulabhinternational.org | Twitter.
com/SulabhIntl): Sulabh International aims at improving
sanitation in India and globally. It aims at delineating
scavengers from the inhuman practices of manually
cleaning and carrying human excreta. The organization
has also introduced an educational tool for schoolchildren
and teachers for providing training for perspective
volunteers to pass on the message to communities and
educate people about health, hygiene and sanitation. Some
of its recent publications include: “Sulabh Swachh Bharat:
A Good News Weekly” in English and Hindi languages
(since 2016), “Sulabh Sanitation Movement” (2010,
https://bit.ly/2F3Go8E). It operates the “ENVIS Centre
on Hygiene, Sanitation, Sewage Treatment Systems and
Technology” that publishes an informative Newsletter
and other databases. Some of them are available on its
portal http://sulabhenvis.nic.in.
9. Jaldhaara Foundation (www.jaldhaara.org | Twitter.
com/Jaldhaara): The Jaldhara foundation aims at
designing and implementing social marketing programs
to transform water, sanitation and hygiene practices in
communities of India. It publishes news on water-related
issues through press releases and media coverage.
10. Water Collective (Thewatercollective.org | Twitter.com/
WaterCollective): Water Collective is an international
nonprofit that secures life-lasting clean water for rural
communities in Africa and India. It also highlights that
the founding director of Sanitation and health appears in
Forbes’ 30 under 30 social entrepreneurs.
11.
SaciWATERs, the South Asia Consortium
for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies
(www.saciwaters.org Twitter.com/SaciWATERs):
SaciWATERs, the South Asia Consortium for
Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies, is a policy
research institute based in Hyderabad, India. To achieve
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water security in South Asia through a pro-poor human
development approach. Some of its publications include:
“Water Security in Peri-Urban South Asia: Adapting
to Climate Change and Urbanisation” (2016, ISBN:
9780199464166), “Water Security in Peri-Urban
Hyderabad” (2018, https://bit.ly/2TBjhMJ), “Climatic
Trends and Variability in South Asia: A Case of Four
Peri-Urban Locations” (2013, https://bit.ly/2Hj5tjI).
12. The Council on Energy, Environment and Water
(http://ceew.in/): The Council on Energy, Environment
and Water (CEEW) is one of South Asia’s leading not-
for-profit policy research institutions. The council
evaluates water management and security issues in
agricultural, industrial, as well as municipal sectors. Their
research interests involve assessing collective action
for water security mapping of India’s traditional water
bodies and modelling of the water-energy nexus. Some
of its publications in partnership with the 2030 Water
Resources Group (2030wrg.org) in the area of water
include: “Circular Economy Pathways for Municipal
Wastewater Management in India: A Practitioner’s
Guide” (2016, https://bit.ly/2FbsToH), “Agri-Water
Sustainability in India: Setting the Agenda for the Alliance
for Thought Leadership and Action” (2015, https://bit.
ly/2TNRrMG) and “Collective Action for Water Security
and Sustainability: Preliminary Investigations” (2014,
https://bit.ly/1OX39N3).
13. Interdisciplinary Centre for Water Research (ICWaR,
Icwar.iisc.ac.in): The  ICWaR at the Indian Institute
of Science is established in April 2015 with an aim to
address water-related issues that have formidable scientific
challenges and significant practical relevance. The Centre
has undertaken studies to assess the impact of climate
change on water resources. Some of its recent publications
include: “Urban Water Systems: A Framework for
Collaboration between ICWaR and UNESCO” (2016,
https://bit.ly/2FeylYd), “Chennai Floods 2015: A Rapid
Assessment” (2016, https://bit.ly/2u5BZNv).
14. World Resources Institute (WRI India, Wri-india.
org | Twitter.com/WRIIndia): WRI India works with
businesses, governments and civil society to ensure a
water-secure future. It aims to address both water quantity
and quality challenges. The organization has developed
India Water Tool where users can find water-related risks
and enabling them in decision making for sustainable
water management. The tools combine data from
Indian government agencies and water stress indicators
developed by WRI and Columbia Water Centre. Another
WRI dataset ‘Aqueduct Global maps’ creates global water
risk maps, allowing stakeholders to assess current and
future challenges. WRI also carries out economic and
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other analyses to identify the most cost-effective strategies
to reduce water pollution. Some of its recent publications
include: “Mapping Public Water Management by
Harmonizing and Sharing Corporate Water Risk
Information” (2018, https://bit.ly/2Fe7c7H), “Parched
Power: Water Demands, Risks and Opportunities for
India’s Power Sector” (2018, https://bit.ly/2CmEv6G).
15. KRG India Research Centre for Rainwater Harvesting
and Environment (Krgindia.in): The KRG India has over
20 years of experience in providing valuable environmental
services to its clients. The surging demand for innovative
methods and systems for water conservation to recharge
the depleting aquifers of water extraction structures saw
the launching of KRG India in the year 2001.
16.
Fluoride India (Fluoride Knowledge and Action
Network, Fluorideindia.org | Twitter.com/fluorideindia):
Fluoride India is engaged in health and better life with
safe water and nutrition. Its network fights against toxic
water problems such as Fluorosis causing Disability. It also
maintains a blog on low-cost water solutions and the Jal
Chaoupal a people’s forum.
17. Water and Sanitation (Twitter.com/WASHIndia): A
community of Government and Private stakeholders
working towards improving the standards of Water and
Sanitation and working towards Swachh Bharat.
18. Water of Life (www.givefreshwater.org | Twitter.com/
WaterOfLife): Water of Life serves three countries who
desperately need clean water to survive and thrive – Sierra
Leone, Liberia and India. Providing access to clean water
for every human across the globe is a monumental goal
and there are many organizations working to do so. The
website shares news on the issue on water-related issues.
19. The Flush Mob (Theflushmob.com | Twitter.com/
TFMdelhi): The Flush Mob is an initiative by a group
of enthusiastic individuals committed to improve the
sanitation and hygiene conditions of India. TFM comes
out with press releases on the issues of clean and safe
drinking water.
20. The Water Charity (Charitywater.org | Twitter.com/
TheWaterCharity): Providing clean water and sanitation
to rural communities in Africa, India and South America.
Charity water maintains blog on the issue of water.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to Sujit Bhattacharya, CSIR-
NISTADS for his valuable suggestions that has helped to
shape this paper.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
 Francis and Das: Webliography of Water Technology and Policy Framework in India
SUMMARY
One of the objectives of this webliography was to produce
a comprehensive list of activities undertaken by institutions
participating in the knowledge creation and knowledge
dissemination process in the area of water at the national
and international level. We discussed that scientometric and
bibliometric tools have over time emerged as a methodology to
assess the research performance in a given area. This approach
uses indicators and tools to assess research performances
across the field of study. Development of these tools and
indicators not only facilitates further research but also assists
in the evidence-based decision-making process. While at
international level, we observe that a number of indicators
tools have been developed in the area of water and sanitation,
at the national level recently efforts have been taken by the
government of India for development of related indicators
and tools for facilitating water-related research encompassing
both forecasting and assessment activities. In case of India,
the release of recent report “Composite Water Management
Index (CWMI): A Tool for Water Management” provides
useful information for the Ministries and Departments at the
Centre and State level for formulating and implementing
strategies suitable for water resource management. It is
therefore imperative at country level for Indian institutions to
identify the key themes and issues around water to construct
meaningful indicators and tools for assessing the water
scenarios.
ABBREVIATIONS
CWMI: Composite Water Management Index; CGWB:
Central Ground Water Board; DST: Department of Science
and Technology; WRI: World Resources Institute; TFM:
The Flush Mob; ICWaR: Interdisciplinary Centre for Water
Research; CEEW: Council on Energy, Environment and
Water; CSE: Centre for Science and Environment; USGS:
United States Geological Survey; CWC: Central Water
Commission; CEH: Centre for Ecology and Hydrology;
CLRA: Centre for Legislative Research and Advocacy; TDB:
Drinking Water Treatability Database; ESRC: Economic
and Social Research Council; EJOLT: Environmental Justice
Organizations, Liabilities and Trade; ENVIS: Environmental
Information System; EPA: Environmental Protection Agency;
EEA: European Environment Agency; INCGW: Indian
National Committee on Ground Water; INCSW: Indian
National Committee on Surface Water; IUKWC: India-UK
Water Centre; IUWM: Integrated Urban Water Management;
IWRM: integrated water resources management; IHP :
International Hydrological Programme; IUCN: International
Union for Conservation of Nature; IWMI: International
Water Management Institute; NGRBA: National
Ganga River Basin Authority; NIF: National Innovation
Foundation; NIH: National Institute of Hydrology; NITI:
Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 9, Issue 2 [Special Issue], May-Aug 2020
National Institution for Transforming India; NMCG:
National Mission for Clean Ganga; OECD: Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development; PAHs: Polycyclic
Aromatic Hydrocarbons; PMKSY: Pradhan Mantri Krishi
Sinchayee Yojana; R&D: Research and Development; SCI:
Science Citation Index; STEPS: Social, Technological and
Environmental Pathways to Sustainability; Stream Cat:
Stream-Catchment; SBM (G): Swachh Bharat Mission
(Gramin); TIFAC: Technology Information, Forecasting and
Assessment Council; TEDDY: TERI Energy and Environment
Data Diary and Yearbook; TIDEE: Teri Information Digest
on Energy and Environment; AKWUDS: The Alaska
Water Use Data System; WELTS: The Alaska Well Log
Tracking System; CUAHSI: The Consortium of Universities
for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science; TERI: The
Energy and Resources Institute; HSBC: The Hongkong
and Shanghai Banking Corporation; NERC: The Natural
Environment Research Council; UNESCO: The United
Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization;
UN-SDGs: United nations Sustainable Development Goals;
UWWTD: Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive;
WCI: Water Cycle Integrator; WDP: Water Data Portal;
WATERiD: Water Infrastructure Database; WSSCC: Water
Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council; WPSI: Water,
Peace and Security Initiative; WASH: Water Sanitation and
Hygiene; WE-GWREM: Web Enabled Ground Water
Recharge Estimation Model; WAR: Winning, Augmentation
and Renovation; WDI: World Development Indicators;
WHO: World Health Organization.
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