Research Quality:

Approaches, Outreach,

and Impact

February 18 – 20, 2015

Istanbul, Turkey

The Making of Aditi-A Publisher’s Point of View

Key Objectives

• Peer Review

• Specific Challenges

• Sharing Experiences

• Story of Aditi

• Summary

Peer Review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people of similar competence

to the producers of the work (peers) Wikipedia

• Practice began sometime after World War

• Mid-19th century-casual referring by individuals

• Note: The 1st recorded editorial pre-publication peer review process was at the

Royal Society of London in 1665

• 20th century - process was institutionalised by Biomedical journals

Goal is to:

• Assess quality

• Ensure that the piece is deemed appropriate for publication

• Ensure that the piece has undergone systematically pre-defined review

process

Challenges

General • Few members review

• Gender bias

• Long time

• Huge data

• Time frame

Specific • Identifying authors

• Topics

• Visualisation

• Coordination

• Not meeting goals For example, Survey experience

Story of Aditi Aditi (Boundless Knowledge) was conceived as an ongoing platform to

continue to discuss topics which were of common interest to the Think

Tank communities

Thank you IDRC for helping us kick-start Aditi

Objectives • Strengthen policy research

discipline

• Highlight the importance of policy

research

• Improve the perception of TTs

amongst the various stakeholders

• Share voice ideas, thoughts,

success stories, learnings

Topics • Funding

• Human resources

• Research capacity

• Institutional issues

of policy research

Aditi Phase 1

We met with the objectives and this is what we published

Aditi Phase 1 Feedback The maiden issue has come out

well. Congratulation!

Dr. Arunachalam, CSTEP, 19 March 2014

Congratulations Annapoorna and the team at CSTEP for

the publication of this inaugural issue, very aptly named

as Aditi. It reads excellent, and with the rich diversity of

topics contained, including survey results, it makes a

great reading.

Many thanks for this wonderful effort and I look forward to

seeing Aditi get established as a regular reminder to

stakeholders of the roles and issues in the world of TTs!

Best regards, and thanks for sharing an advance copy

Dr. Samar Verma, 21 March 2014

Dear Annapoorna,

Congratulations! The issue has come out very well. It’s

got a good combination of articles from diverse sources

and great idea to have contribution from Latin American

think tanks. The one liners "In a lighter vein" are very

nice :)

Congratulations to you, Arushi and Bhawna!

Dr. Anshu Bharadwaj, CSTEP, July 11, 2014 This looks great, I was wondering

whether you would like to share

your newsletter through the PEC

programme learning platform

(Research to Action:

http://www.researchtoaction.org/)?

Siobhan Duvigneau, IDS,

UK, March 26, 2014

Thank you both for sharing the first issue of Aditi! There are so many great

articles included, I’m thinking through ways that TTI can showcase some of the

featured stories on the TTI website. Would your writers be comfortable having

these articles profiled elsewhere or is the agreement that the bulletin content be

for exclusive publishing in the bulletin? I am open to suggestions or limitations

but feel there are stories worth sharing with think tanks in LA and Africa too!

Julie Lafrance, IDRC Canada, March 26, 2014

Publisher’s Perspective

As a publisher, we took up Aditi as

a project – Initiated: Identified purpose, focus and

audience

– Planned: started putting down ideas,

contact people, identify appropriate

topics, build a survey

– Executed: • Design- visual appeal has become an

important aspect and requires a very focused

and meaningful (user-centered design)

– Monitored and Controlled • Review Process

• Follow up

– Published

•

Aditi Phase 2

Based on the feedback received and our experiences, CSTEP

decided to continue with the publication of Aditi

• Similar objectives

• Focused on crucial broad themes

• Identified sections that could be included

• Communicated to likely contributors

• Set the ball rolling

Aditi Phase 2

• This platform has allowed us to go on to a global platform

• We have initiated contacts with South African, Latin

American Think Tanks and organisations

• We are negotiating cross-postings to reach a wider

audience

Aditi Phase 2

Thank You

www.cstep.in