Panel suggests e-forum to maximise R&D gains

NEW DELHI: India may be shining now, but the shine may soon wear off if attention is not paid to the quality of science and technology, manpower and R&D. Increased expenditure in research and development and improved S&T personnel is crucial, if India is to transit to higher levels of innovation.
For this, India needs to leverage fundamental research at academic institutions, and applied research in laboratories. Former CSIR director SK Joshi’s taskforce has submitted its recommendations to the government on how to make this happen.
While India may have large numbers of professionals in science and engineering in absolute terms (intake in the 1208 AICTE approved engineering colleges is nearly 3.6 lakh), it fares rather poorly considering the size of the population and when compared to international standards. India has nearly 7 S&T personnel per 1000 persons, while China has 8.1 S&T personnel per 1000 persons. The figure is 45 for South Korea and 55 for the US.
Consider another figure. According to a recent National Science Foundation report on Science and Engineering Indicators ’02, only 0.4% of India’s engineering graduates finish their PhDs. The figure is 4% in the US, and 7% in Europe. In India, less than 1% of the national resources is spent on R&D. Of this, only 20% is accounted by industry, as against the practice in developed countries, where industry contributes 60-80%.
The report suggests that a formal sharing process be set up between premier academic institutions like the IITs, IISc, Bangalore and the CSIR labs. One possible forum for collaboration could be through an e-portal.
Also, enhanced collaboration in the form of joint academic programmes has been suggested, to largely target the post-graduate and research levels in emerging trans-disciplinary areas. Keeping cost constraints in mind, the report suggests that academic institutes and laboratories jointly set up research facilities, or work out a sharing system for the already well equipped CSIR labs.