Colleges and universities should nurture young talent by promoting research in new knowledge so as to innovate and produce new products, says Professor of National University of Singapore Seeram Ramakrishna.
Companies employ people who can come out with new products that withstand market conditions successfully meeting regulatory norms and unless research is promoted it is difficult to make the best use of innovative ideas, he said.
Prof. Ramakrishna, hailing from Cherukupalli near Guntur and an alumnus of Andhra University, was here recently to participate in the international symposium on business ideas for sustainable development hosted by Andhra University and Yunus Centre, Bangladesh. After his M.Tech. from IIT, Madras, he did his Ph.D. from University of Cambridge.
He is presently Professor of Materials Engineering and Director of Centre for Nanofibres and Nanotechnology at NUS.
In a country like India research and innovation in nano technology has the potential to vastly improve, among others, water and air quality, healthcare and marketing prospects for agricultural produce, he says.
“For instance, it can bring down active pharmaceutical ingredient in a drug that goes directly to the affected organ and can vastly reduce side-effects,” Prof. Ramakrishna says. It is also capable of halting the ripening process of fruits or keep flowers fresh helping farmers facing problems of marketing and delayed transport. Ripening period of fruits can be extended from six days to 18 days, he says.
Giving another example, he says the hilly regions of Chile face water problem and nano technology helps in converting fog into water. In spacecraft, it helps keep temperatures low insulating from the very high temperatures outside.
While Germany pioneered research in universities beginning about 150 years ago, the US popularised it and countries like China, Japan and Korea are investing heavily in research in universities, Prof. Ramakrishna points out saying India also should catch up.
Even otherwise, India is investing only one per cent of GDP in research while China is investing two per cent and Korea and Japan four per cent. The country's research funding is mostly going into strategic sectors and national missions for obvious reasons, which is all the more reason for research in universities and colleges, he says.
