How about extinguishing fires using sonic waves or flying a drone using satellite signals. Or, have you thought of freeing the radio from crackling noise or getting a fair estimation of the quake-resistance properties of a reinforced cement concrete building in your neighbourhood?
These were among some of the innovative ideas that were mentored to the extent of a viable research project at a winter camp hosted in Kerala last year by a group of Indian academic researchers from diverse disciplines who “practise science for a living”.
Following their maiden venture’s good reception, the Open Academic Research (OAR), which aims for an ideal non-profit academic environment that is open to everyone, will hold a similar camp for curious minds in Puducherry in December.
The OAR#2 Winter Research Workshop (December 27-January 2) will be held at Sharanam, a UN Environment-backed project of Sri Aurobindo Society. OAR seeks to “create opportunities to seek answers to open questions... and harness free thinking and curiosity-driven research.”
Interrelated fields
The students will join the scientists with an open question and he/she will solve the problem alone or in a group where our role will be to supervise them with open and broad minds. OAR drives home the fundamental that nature does not segregate any field.
For example, biology is hard to understand without physics, chemistry, and mathematics. The idea was floated against the backdrop of academic settings like India where constraints prevent children from thinking freely, often nullifying creative thought. And, this lacuna is enlarged when a nation looks for ideal minds to take forward its S&T ambitions. OAR believes that only a few undergraduate institutions aim to focus on nurturing creativity. This age-old problem reflects through India’s research output.
OAR’s winter camps are targeted at higher secondary, undergraduate, and masters students of any discipline. The participation will be solely curiosity driven instead of any competitive screening.
The total number of student participants will be decided based on the available supervising project leaders.
Importantly, it is the idea rather than language skills that matter here. OAR screening is designed to find students genuinely interested to fully utilise this opportunity. OAR targets students from higher secondary to masters level, allow the young minds to think freely by giving them opportunity to create and ask open questions.
“We expect to hear from two kinds of students — those who are able to think freely and those who find it hard,” says Abhilash, co-founder of OAR and researcher at Biomedical Photonic Imaging, University of Twente, The Netherlands. “For the first kind, we will enable and guide them how to seek answers...for others, we will teach them how to think and guide them how to seek answers,” he said.
To get an idea of the multidisciplinary roots of OAR, consider the fact that the other co-founders include The Nehterlands-based academia Siddarth Ghosh (Institute of Physics, Leiden University), Moumita Ghosh (Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University) and Pritam Pai (doctoral researcher, Urecht).
Harnessing creativity
“We agree that some ground-breaking research is indeed expensive and requires tedious effort. But, considering the highly encouraging outcomes of our first workshop, it is perhaps high time that OAR’s interest of harnessing creativity and freethinking is more seriously considered,” said Mr. Abhilash.
OAR shortlists applicants on a first-come-first-serve basis. For online registration, aspirants can visit www.openacademicresearch.org/registration. The deadline is November 25.
