New Delhi: The Nature group of publications, which runs the venerable Nature magazine and a host of academic journals, launched its India portal. It is expected to provide an avenue to Indian scientists to publish more papers.

The portal will highlight research by Indian scientists, report on science policy, provide a forum where scientists can advertise and look for jobs and link to the larger network of Nature journals, the group's Publishing Director David Swinbanks said at the launch.

The original Nature magazine was launched in 1869. Since then, the group has started many academic journals and is now focussing on the Asia-Pacific region because the number of papers out of this region was growing quickly, Swinbanks said.

"There has been a dramatic growth in scientific output from Asia-Pacific, especially in the areas of physics, chemistry and engineering. More specifically, scientists from this region are global leaders in publishing papers in the areas of photonics, materials studies and nanotechnology." Swinbanks hoped the launch of the India portal would help scientists in this country get closer to their counterparts in Japan and China in terms of the number of papers published.

Source : IANS