Image Source: Visual China

BEIJING, April 18 (TMTPOST) — The Chinese Academy of Sciences, China’s national academy for natural sciences, has terminated its subscription to CNKI, a key national research and information publishing institution in the country.

An insider at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has confirmed the report with the Chinese media outlet The Paper. The insider said that the academy will stop using CNKI’s service starting from April 20.

However, CNKI has denied the news report, saying that the news report is untrue, according to Economic View.

Launched in 1996, CNKI is a key national research and information publishing institution in China. It is China’s biggest publishing channel and electronic academic resource provider, serving mainly universities, public libraries, research institutions, hospitals, government departments and schools, etc. CNKI currently serves over 20,000 institutions and 20,000,000 individual users. The platform has 95% of Chinese academic resources and enjoys a 100% market share in universities and a market share of more than 60% in other markets.

An internal email from a research center at the Chinese Academy of Sciences says that the National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences had failed to reach a service procurement agreement with CNKI and would therefore stop providing academic resource services from CNKI starting from April 15. The email says that CQVIP and Wangfang Data will be the alternative options for users at the academy.

The email also highlights that CNKI attempts to charge the academy nearly ten million yuan for its service and set up several strict restrictions such as user limits.

The Paper reported that at least six universities in China have openly announced that they would terminate subscriptions to CNKI’s service due to expensive fees.