Inaugurating a Research and Development Centre at Madras Christian College on Wednesday, eminent scientist M.S. Swaminathan urged students and young researchers to be independent, instead of taking the easy way out by accessing information from the internet and other sources.
Stressing on the importance of independent research, Dr. Swaminathan reminded them that the discoveries made by young scientists and researches may be simple but they should have large scale applications for people. He also told students to embrace “translational research”, which according to him was most crucial for science to succeed.
Translational research was important in converting science into technology. “Science advances frontiers of knowledge, technology advances frontiers of wealth,” Dr. Swaminathan remarked. Lauding the efforts of the college management for setting up the R and D Centre, he added that MCC would be celebrating its 175th year in 2012-2013, which the Prime Minister had declared as the Year of Science.
A note said that the major objectives of the centre were to motivate young teachers to take up a career in research, address the needs of research scholars and to raise funds for their work and to make the scholars globally competitive and employable.
There were plans to start a “peer reviewed” quality research journal for sciences and humanities separately that met international standards and also organise national and international conferences on multi-disciplinary themes. A grievance cell for research scholars would be opened so that a support system could be created.
R.W. Alexander Jesudasan, principal, M. Gabriel, Dean, Research and Development, and D. Narasimhan, Associate Dean, Sciences, spoke.
