DINDIGUL: Allocation of sufficient funds for research activities and collaboration network will take scientific research to higher level and to meet India’s growing scientific and technological needs, said Kurunathan Ratnavelu, Professor, University of Malaya.
Delivering the keynote address at an International Conference on Discrete and Computational Mathematics at Gandhigram Rural Institute at Gandhigram near here on Thursday, he said that with the growing economic presence, there was a deep interest in quality and quantity of scientific research in China and India.
“China had become a major global player, next to the US, in scientific research and had overtaken Europe in its annual scientific output in the last one decade. Of the total annual scientific output in the world, the US share was 50%.
India’s presence in global arena had been considered in different lights. India was globally ranked eighth for chemistry and 12th in physical sciences. But it was not so in mathematics. However, six mathematicians were in higher ranks in the globe of whom four were doing research in international universities and two were in India, he pointed out.
Stating that India has more than 3000 universities, he said that sanctioning funds to all institutions were a big task for the government. But China had identified 21 universities and sanctioned additional funds and fixed target of five years to achieve them in certain fields.
At the same time, it had been sanctioning regular funds to all other institutions. Such measures helped China got what it wanted within the stipulated time and advanced quickly in technological development, Mr. Ratnavelu added.
With the growing economic development, sanctioning of more funds and academic transparency would increase research activities in manifold. Opportunities for collaboration with foreign universities too were very bright. Higher educational institutions could utilise it effectively and take the research to higher levels, he added.
