Events & Issues
New Delhi, 9 February 2009
Waking Up To
R&D Needs
UNFETTERED FISCAL AID
TO INSTITUTIONS
By Dhurjati Mukherjee
India plans to set up a quasi-independent
panel to fund and promote research in science and engineering. The panel to be
called the National Science & Engineering Board (NSERB) will be modelled on
the lines of the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the US. The
Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister had recommended the setting up
such a body some time back, but is finally now expected to provide unfettered
financial assistance to academic institutions, including universities, research
laboratories and industrial concerns.
It may be mentioned here that the NSF, the model for the
Board, was created as an independent federal agency by the US Congress in 1950
“to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity
and welfare; to secure the national defence in America”. It has an annual budget
of over $ 6 billion and funds 20 per cent of all federally-sponsored
fundamental science research at universities and colleges across the US. Annually it
funds around 10,000 new research projects and the NSF-funded researchers have over
170 Nobel Prizes.
Dr. Manmohan Singh’s
zeal to promote scientific education and research in the country is manifest with
his asking universities and individual scientists to foster a research
environment. “It is teachers and researchers who inspire new generations ….We
need a new generation of role models and leaders”. While pointing out the
government’s determination to invest more into research, specially in space and
nuclear programmes, Dr. Singh has called on the private sector to spare
adequate funds in this regard. “We need a new wave of such investment from the
private sector so that our young people will be encouraged increasingly to seek
a career in science.”
Research in science and engineering has become very crucial
at this juncture as the country is headed towards being a leading
knowledge-based economy in the coming years. Funding in research is, no doubt,
a problem as the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Deptt. of Science
& Technology (DST) take a long time to clear project proposals. The
universities also have difficulty in mobilizing adequate financial and
intellectual resources which, in turn, hampered research. On the other hand,
industry- based research is extremely limited and is invariably
market-oriented.
Although our science and technology policy advocated
pubic-private partnership in research, industry’s contribution remains just
about 20 per cent as compared to around 70-80 per cent in advanced countries
and 40 per cent in China.
It is indeed intriguing why the Indian private sector has been unable to
contribute to R&D compared to their counterparts in South Korea and Singapore, not to speak of the
Western nations. Except for the Tata group and another one or two in the
pharmaceutical sector, the contribution of even the market leaders in industry towards
research has been quite poor. The industry-wise, R&D expenditure too has
not been encouraging except, of course, for the pharma and IT sectors.
On its part, the Centre has asked the States to prepare a
vision document of their science councils and prepare a specific action plan.
The Centre would bear the cost of identification and preparation of the action
plans by the States which would then be put together for a national perspective
that would take note of region-specific needs. According to the Union S&T
minister, Kapil Sibal, such synergy was needed to bridge the gap between
developing science and creating a scientific manpower base.
Simultaneously, realizing the imperative need to give a
boost to science education and attract more students in this field, the Scientific
Advisory Council’s recommendation to the Prime Minister is now expected to
become a reality, with a few new institutes of science, and some more in the
offing, already set up. The proposals come with some hefty price tags: Rs 500
crore for each of the institutes and Rs 1,000 crore for the Board to fund basic
research in the universities. The obvious goal is to inject more money into
science, create more centres of excellence and gear up the pace and quality of
basic and applied research.
The current emphasis is obviously on basic sciences which,
over the years, have not received the attention it deserved even compared to
technical education. At the same time, the National Knowledge Commission (NKC)
recommended setting up the National Science & Mathematics Commission to
achieve the target of making India
a hub of scientific knowledge and encourage research. In engineering also, the
government has increased the seats of the IITs and few more has been created,
out of which around four have already started functioning.
But the big question is whether the decline in research
standards in Indian universities would be checked and whether our scientists
would not migrate to the West. Another question that would need to be borne in
mind is the type of research being conducted, mainly in the specialized
institutes, which generally did not have a direct bearing on society. While the
standards of research would have to meet international levels, the orientation
of such research should benefit society, specially in a country like ours,
beset with various problems.
The government’s concern at this juncture cannot be doubted
and quite justifiably so as the country aims at achieving international
standards and become globally competitive in the coming years. The warning of
‘acting now’ has been rightly sounded and this has resulted in implementing the
action plan at the highest level.
Objectives too have been put in place. These are: selected
and the deserving to be handsomely funded so that they attain international
standards; demand performance from individuals and institutions after providing
necessary funds; initiate a massive programme of rejuvenation of State and Central
universities; encourage top talent from all corners of the country to enter the
field of pure science and also encourage young scientists in research work in
all possible ways; and provide freedom of operation to scientists, universities
and scientific institutions and make available adequate funds for research.
Clearly, scientific innovations in key areas such as power
(nuclear power), defence, nanotechnology, pharma, IT, climate change and even
security and pandemics are imperative for the country at this juncture. To
emerge as a world leader in the true sense, there is need for sustained
research in the above areas, responsibility for which has to be shared jointly
by the government and the private sector. For a country to emerge big and
strong, R&D has to be given priority. Importantly, more funds need to be allocated
for this purpose under different heads so that the benefits of research reach
society, both rural and urban and industrial and agricultural. --INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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