End of UGC-CARE List Pushes Indian Universities to Build Their Own Research Quality Systems

What the UGC-CARE Discontinuation Means for Indian Researchers

The University Grants Commission’s UGC-CARE journal list, long the central reference for identifying credible academic outlets in India, has been discontinued. The decision ends a top-down model in which a single national list signalled which journals were safe for publication and which should be avoided. For doctoral students and early-career researchers, that benchmark has now disappeared.

In its place, Indian higher education institutions are being asked to take on a much larger role: developing their own transparent, context-sensitive systems for evaluating research. The shift is described as a move away from centralised gatekeeping toward decentralised, institution-led assessment — but it has created immediate uncertainty. Many researchers, without a clear alternative, are falling back on commercial indexes such as Scopus or Web of Science and on journal impact factors, a pattern that risks entrenching a narrow, often Western-centric view of credible scholarship.

The change also raises concerns about academic integrity. Predatory and cloned journals that previously had to navigate a vetted national list may find it easier to target publication-pressured researchers. The commentary argues that unless universities actively safeguard quality, the predatory-publishing problem could mutate rather than shrink.

Regulatory bodies including the UGC, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, the National Council for Teacher Education and the All India Council for Technical Education are urged to play a facilitative rather than prescriptive role — supporting institutions with guidance, capacity-building and a consultative journal repository rather than imposing a new uniform list.

The Institutional Vacuum After Centralised Journal Gatekeeping

The immediate pressure falls on universities

Under the previous system, institutions could largely defer to the UGC-CARE list. With that list gone, universities are no longer passive facilitators; they must define what counts as legitimate research. The commentary argues this is the right direction, but only if institutions build evaluation frameworks that are transparent, peer-review-based and sensitive to disciplinary diversity — not simply local copies of the same metric-driven models.

This is not a technical adjustment. It requires doctoral supervisors and senior faculty to mentor students on choosing publication platforms, navigating peer review and understanding ethical clearance and anti-plagiarism standards. Without that institutional handholding, early-career researchers are the most exposed.

Regional and vernacular journals face marginalisation

A central concern is that over-reliance on Scopus, Web of Science and impact factors will further sideline Indian journals — particularly those publishing in regional languages or on locally relevant topics in education, sociology, political science and indigenous studies. The argument is that a purely indexed approach confuses visibility with quality and weakens the diversity of Indian scholarship. High-quality journals that lack indexing but maintain editorial rigour and ethical practices could be overlooked.

Predatory publishing could exploit the vacuum

The absence of a vetted list creates an opening for unethical publishers. Researchers under pressure to publish may not have the tools to distinguish credible outlets from predatory ones. The commentary proposes domain-specific peer review and tiered journal evaluation based on editorial standards, peer-review quality, ethics and accessibility as the institutional safeguard — but notes that none of this emerges automatically from decentralisation.

Regulators must rebuild support without recentralising

The piece calls for national bodies to provide a dynamic, well-curated journal repository as a reference rather than an enforcement tool. It also links successful decentralisation to concrete capacity-building: editorial training, digital publishing tools and funding for Indian journals, plus ombudsman mechanisms to handle publication disputes. Without these, the risk is fragmentation and inconsistency rather than genuine reform.

What Universities and Researchers Must Build Next

For the change to work, the commentary identifies specific responsibilities rather than abstract goals.

• Universities should design domain-specific peer review systems that assess originality, methodological soundness, contextual relevance and societal impact — not indexing status alone.
• Doctoral supervisors and senior faculty need to mentor early-career researchers on journal selection, peer review, ethical clearance and anti-plagiarism norms.
• Institutions should recognise regional and vernacular scholarship in evaluation frameworks, including qualitative indicators such as editorial standards and peer-review rigour.
• National regulators should create a consultative journal repository and invest in editorial training, digital publishing tools and funding for Indian journals.
• Researchers should shift from citation-chasing to a self-regulatory publishing culture, using reflective portfolios that document dissemination, community engagement and scholarly impact alongside publications.
• Institutions should embed open science practices — including open access, data repositories and preprint platforms — and establish ombudsman systems for publication-related grievances.