About this Chapter

The Indian Chapter of EASE was established in Spring 2022, by Dr Sushil Kumar, Deputy Dean, Journals & Publications, Chitkara University Publications,  India. He identified a number of challenges facing the industry in India:

‘We have an urgent requirement to train Indian editors, reviewers and young researchers in the best practices of publishing to raise the quality and quantity of research.

Many Indian universities and associations are running journals but without the relevant knowledge of publishing. The editorial teams may be subject matter specialists but they have limited knowledge of the best technologies required in the digital world. For example, many publish all accepted articles in a single file (PDF) without assigning a separate identity to each article.

Reviewers need training so they understand how to review articles critically. English is a second language in India, which adds language complexities for many researchers who are unable to meet international standards.’

In Spring 2023 the Chapter leadership was refreshed with Vivek Kumar, Indian Copyeditors Forum taking over as Chair, and Roohi Ghosh, Cactus Communication, taking over as vice chair. A new expanded leadership team was appointed and a number of activities were undertaken.

Aims and objectives of the Chapter

The Chapter has defined the following aims and objectives:

• To promote awareness of EASE
• To organise training activities and thematic meetings in India for the scientific and scholarly editing and publishing community
• To offer training to researchers, authors, reviewers, editorial teams, editorial office staff and editorial advisory boards, thereby improving the standard and quality of scientific journals in India
• To support scientific journals to meet international standards and get indexed in international databases
• To represent the Indian science editing community within EASE.

Activities planned for 2023 included

1. Broaden and strengthen the leadership team and organisational structure required to operate the Chapter
2. Identify potential members and build a database of contacts and provide incentives to encourage appropriate people to join EASE
3. Promote the new Chapter and raise awareness of the need for training
4. Deliver the EASE School for Manuscript Editors and Academic Authors (completed March 2023)
5. Deliver EASE member webinars on a variety of subjects, and developing new courses/content to meet local needs
6. Plan a programme of events, webinars, training, networking events, workshops, etc to be delivered in 2024
7. Promote EASE Guidelines and Resources.

As these activities were confirmed and delivered, we have added them to our Activities and Achievements panels.