Allocation of sufficient funds for research activities and collaboration network will take scientific research to higher level to meet India’s growing scientific and technological needs, said Kurunathan Ratnavelu, Professor, University of Malaya.
Delivering keynote address at an international conference on Discrete and Computational Mathematics held at Gandhigram Rural Institute at Gandhigram near here on Thursday, he said with the growing economic presence, there was deep interest in quality and quantity of scientific research in China and India.
China has become a major global player, next to US, in scientific research and has overtaken Europe in its annual scientific output in the last one decade. Of the total annual scientific output in the world, US share was 50%.
India’s presence in the global arena has been considered in different light. India was globally ranked eighth in chemistry and 12th in physical sciences. But it was not so in Mathematics. However, six mathematicians were in higher ranks in the globe of which four were doing research in international universities and two were in India, he pointed out.
Stating that India has more than 3,000 universities, he said that sanctioning funds to all institutions was a big task for the government. But China had identified 21 universities and sanctioned additional funds and fixed a target of five years to them for achieving in certain fields.
At the same time, it has been sanctioning regular funds to all other institutions. Such measures helped China get what it wanted within the stipulated time and make advances in technological development. With growing economic development, sanctioning of more funds and ensuring academic transparency would increase research activities 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. At Department level, some faculty members could concentrate and oversee research fully and others could run the department and its functions, he added.
