Mapping the open access publications of Indian non-profit organizations over the last 20 years based on OpenAlex insights

Purpose This paper aims to present a comprehensive overview of open-access publications by Indian non-profit organizations over the past two decades. The study explores the growth, licensing patterns, citations, authorship patterns and other parameters to understand the scholarly output. Design/methodology/approach The study involves data collection from OpenAlex scholarly catalog. Data analysis uses OpenRefine, a data carpentry tool, to examine and extract various aspects of scholarly output. A total of 89,149 scholarly outputs from 2004 to 2023 were analyzed using statistical and bibliometric methods. Findings The findings revealed a positive publication growth trend, with 57.74% open access. Gold OA dominates, with 69.61% of papers in 2023. Licensing patterns reveal that 63.75% of OA papers have licenses. Most papers have multiple authors, with 24.83% of over ten authors receiving 60.12% of citations. “Medknow” is the leading publisher, and “The Indian Journal of Ophthalmology” tops journals. Contributions from repositories like SSRN and PubMed are significant. The study also examines citation patterns across different OA types and identifies the top 30 research areas, emphasizing “Medicine” as the most prevalent. Practical implications The identified trends and patterns offer valuable insights for policymakers, researchers and organizations to enhance accessibility and impact. This study stresses sustained efforts for transparency and democratization of knowledge in the non-profit sector. Originality/value This study filled a gap in existing research by focusing on Indian non-profits, highlighting their roles and impacts often overlooked in scholarly literature. This study provides insights into the growth of open-access publications and their implications in the non-profit sector.