Stem vs hss

"India is the only market where STM budgets are larger than HSS"

ys Nitasha Devasar, managing director, 
Taylor & Francis India and a seasoned academic publisher, in an exclusive interview with Varsha Verma. 

With a 216-year-old strong legacy behind them, Taylor & Francis India is celebrating 10 years of its existence in South Asia servicing both professional as well as academic markets. Here, Nitasha Devasar, managing director, Taylor & Francis India, tells more about their presence in India. 

Varsha: What are the major challenges for STM publishers? 

Nitasha Devasar

Nitasha: In today’s changing market dynamics, there are a few pertinent challenges that are common to all publishers: currency change, distribution network, taxation issues, attrition, paucity of funds in government institutes, ever shrinking budgets and discount structures. 

The sheer quantum of number of titles and research available today in STM (Scientific, Technological and Management) is exhaustive. India is the only market where STM budgets are larger than HSS (Higher Social Science). It is the opposite across the world. Continuously upgrading the research in books is another challenge for all the STM publishers. 

Varsha: How is T&F adapting to changing scholarly landscapes and other challenges? 

Nitasha: At T&F, we take pride in understanding the challenge of today’s market dynamics. We constantly analyse new opportunities for advancement of research excellence and ensure that our products and sales models constantly evolve, our copyright policies are friendly while protecting the rights of our partners. 

To move ahead with times, we have launched cogent OA, which is our open access programme that puts author interests at the heart of everything we do. We like to see ourselves as a tailored and friendly publisher running our business on environmentally sound principles with a strong backbone of social responsibility. 

Varsha: What plans T&F have with respect to making content accessible via digital and mobile devices? 

Nitasha: We have a passion for digital distribution (we are one of the world’s leading publishers of online journals and ebooks). We are also committed to the widest distribution of our journals to not-for-profit institutions in developing countries. 

Our content is available via our user-friendly mobile applications through Taylor and Francis online that provides access to, and information about, all journals from Taylor & Francis, Routledge and Psychology Press. Whether you are looking for a specific article or simply interested in the latest research within your subject area, you can find everything. 

Varsha: Social networking is becoming a mainstream component of scientific research. How does T&F approach / utilize the social networking phenomenon? 

Nitasha: Taylor & Francis is very active on social networks. We invite authors to submit their papers online, tweet latest research and citations online, run campaigns regularly on Pinterest and offer customized information on Facebook. We also regularly share latest information about our events and happenings through our Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Varsha: Please share a brief history of T&F and its operations in India? 

Nitasha: Taylor & Francis is an Informa business. Informa is a multinational information provider for the academic, professional and commercial markets with offices in over 40 countries. It is one of the world’s leading publishers of scholarly books, journals, ebooks and reference works. Our content spans the humanities, Social Sciences, Behavioural and Life Sciences, Technology and Medicine. 

We began our operations in November 1998 as a liaison office and became a 100 percent branch of Taylor & Francis Group in 2004. We have our own imprint, ‘Routledge India Originals’ and have published 307 titles, including 15 series on issues and themes central to contemporary Indian scholarship, in the past 10 years. 

Our Indian Journals programme is committed to showcasing innovative South Asian research in the global arena with dedicated support for editors, authors, publishing partners and learned societies. T&F India’s reprint programme continues to make high-quality content available to student and research community at affordable prices. 

We are a proud 100 plus employees with sales representatives spread across the country to look after our business interests. Taylor & Francis staff provide local expertise and support to our editors, societies and authors and tailored, efficient customer service to our library colleagues. Our knowledge outsourcing units, such as Europa, BIS and IT comprises different teams who work in direct liaison with our head office to generate world-class content used by universities across the world. 

Varsha: How many different books and journals are there at T&F? 

Nitasha: We publish 1,700 journals, 40,000 ebooks, 3,600 new books every year and 60,000 specialist titles. 

Varsha: What is the USP of T&F? 

Nitasha: The USP of Taylor & Francis India is a collaborative approach to business founded on open communication and intelligent engagement. We bring to our customers local market knowledge with global exposure coupled with high-quality products and services tailored to their needs. Our imprints CRC Press, CRC Medical and Garland Science are world renowned for their content and are an inseparable part of any researcher’s collection today. Our stand out USP is the length and breadth of our publishing. We publish in big areas as well as niche areas. That makes us stand apart.