Current Science

About Current Science

Overview

Current Science is an English-language peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal published fortnightly from Bengaluru, and it is India's leading interdisciplinary science journal. Established in 1932, it is published by the Current Science Association in collaboration with the Indian Academy of Sciences. The journal covers all branches of pure and applied science and technology — physics, chemistry, life sciences, medicine, earth sciences, engineering and technology — publishing full-length research articles, shorter research communications, review articles, scientific correspondence, commentaries, news and views, interviews with scientists and book reviews. With the ISSN 0011-3891, it is entirely open access, is indexed in Web of Science, Scopus, Chemical Abstracts and other major databases, and recorded a 2023 impact factor of 1.1. Its official website is currentscience.ac.in, hosted from its editorial office on C. V. Raman Avenue in Bengaluru.

Founding in 1932

Current Science was established in 1932 by a group of eminent figures in Indian science: C. V. Raman, the Nobel laureate physicist; Birbal Sahni, the pioneering palaeobotanist; Meghnad Saha, the astrophysicist; Martin Forster; and S. S. Bhatnagar, the chemist who would later become the architect of India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. The founding reflected a conviction that Indian science needed its own journal of record — a domestic platform where Indian researchers could publish, debate and be read, rather than depending entirely on British and European periodicals. In 1932, India was still under colonial rule, and the creation of an Indian-owned scientific journal was itself an assertion of scientific self-reliance. The journal has published continuously ever since, reaching its milestone of one hundred volumes in 2011 — a run of nearly a century that few scientific journals anywhere in the world can match.

The Current Science Association

The journal is published by the Current Science Association, based in Bengaluru, which owns and manages the publication. The Association's office stands on C. V. Raman Avenue — named for the journal's most famous founder — at Post Box No. 8001, Bengaluru 560080, a symbolic address that ties the journal to the geography of Indian science. The Association oversees the journal's editorial operations, subscriptions, advertising and administration, and maintains the journal's website and archives. It also handles manuscript processing through an online editorial system, having used the Open Journal Systems software for submissions since 2013. The Association's stewardship has kept the journal independent and scientist-led across nine decades, through the transformation of Indian science from a small colonial-era enterprise to one of the world's largest research systems.

Partnership with the Indian Academy of Sciences

Current Science is published by the Current Science Association in collaboration with the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Bengaluru-based national academy founded in 1934 by C. V. Raman. The partnership brings together the Association's publishing operation with the Academy's institutional weight and its community of over a thousand elected Fellows. The journal's editorial board consists of experts from India and abroad across all scientific disciplines, and the editor-in-chief is S. K. Satheesh of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. The collaboration reflects the overlapping histories of the two institutions — both trace their origins to Raman's vision of an organised, self-confident Indian science — and it gives the journal access to the Academy's networks of authors, referees and readers.

A fortnightly rhythm

Current Science is published semi-monthly — every fortnight — with issues dated the 10th and 25th of each month. This rapid rhythm, unusual among general science journals, allows the journal to combine the functions of a research periodical with those of a science news magazine: research articles and communications appear alongside editorials, opinions, commentaries, news and views, and comments on recently published papers. The fortnightly cycle means that scientific correspondence and debate can unfold quickly, and that special sections on diverse and topical themes can respond to events while they are still current. The journal's archive, with well over 130 volumes, is a continuous record of Indian and international science as it happened — a resource for historians of science as well as for working researchers.

Content and scope

The journal's scope is deliberately broad: it covers all branches of pure and applied science and technology, including physics, chemistry, life sciences, medicine, earth sciences, engineering and technology. Its pages carry full-length research articles and shorter research communications, review articles, scientific correspondence and commentaries, news and views, comments on recently published research papers, articles on universities and institutions, interviews with scientists, and book reviews. Special sections on topical themes provide platforms for the scientific community to highlight emerging areas. Beyond research, the journal serves as a forum for discussion of important issues concerning science and scientific activity in India — science policy, funding, education, ethics and the social responsibilities of scientists. Its editorials and opinion pieces are noted for reflecting the individual views of their authors rather than official institutional positions, preserving the journal's role as a genuinely open forum.

Peer review and indexing

Current Science is a peer-reviewed journal, with manuscripts refereed by experts before publication. It is indexed by Web of Science, Current Contents, Geobase, Chemical Abstracts, IndMed and Scopus, among other databases, giving its authors international visibility. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal's impact factor stood at 1.1 in 2023, placing it in the third quartile of multidisciplinary sciences journals. Its ISO 4 abbreviation is Curr. Sci., its CODEN is CUSCAM, and its Library of Congress control number is 44042917. While its impact factor is modest by the standards of elite international journals, the journal's significance lies elsewhere: in its role as the principal general-science journal of the world's most populous country, read, in its own account, by over a lakh of scientists and professionals involved in decision-making, and reaching nearly every university, college, scientific institute and industrial research unit in India.

Open access and circulation

Current Science is entirely open access: all of its content is freely available to readers online, without subscription barriers. This commitment to openness is consistent with the journal's founding mission of serving the Indian scientific community, and it distinguishes the journal from many commercial periodicals. The journal describes itself as the leading multidisciplinary science journal from India with the largest circulation among scientific journals in the country. Print subscriptions remain available for institutions and individuals who want the physical journal, with payments accepted by demand draft or cheque in favour of the Current Science Association, Bengaluru. The combination of open digital access and a continuing print edition allows the journal to serve both the connected researcher and the institutional library.

A warning about predatory imitations

The journal's prominence has made it a target for fraud. The Current Science Association has issued a public alert warning researchers about a predatory website operating under a deceptively similar domain, which copied content and journal descriptions from the genuine Current Science website and solicited papers from researchers by email, promising speedy publication — classic predatory-journal behaviour. The Association has stressed that the fraudulent site and its email addresses have no connection with the journal, and has asked researchers who receive such solicitations to forward them to the journal's genuine editorial address and ignore them. The episode is a reminder of the journal's standing — it is worth imitating — and of the vigilance required to protect the integrity of scholarly publishing. Readers and authors should use only the official site at currentscience.ac.in and the journal's official submission system.

Current Science today

Approaching its centenary, Current Science remains what its founders intended: a fortnightly journal of research that is also a forum for the discussion of science in India. Its recent issues carry editorials on improving public awareness of science, research on topics from light-matter interaction to black pepper breeding, scientific correspondence proposing new species, and reports from India's research stations as far afield as Svalbard in the Arctic. Published from C. V. Raman Avenue in Bengaluru by the Current Science Association in collaboration with the Indian Academy of Sciences, and freely available online at currentscience.ac.in, the journal continues to do what it has done since 1932: give Indian science a voice of its own, every fortnight, without fail.