FM tunes into R&D via knowledge network

Moreover, the announcement comes when India is emerging as a global research hub.

Academicians say that such a national network, one of the recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission, is expected to “encourage sharing of resources and boost collaborative research”. Finance Minister P Chidambaram has proposed to provide Rs 100 crore to the Ministry of Information Technology for establishing the network.

“New and emerging problems require inter-disciplinary work. Today, though individuals work in their own area, institutes don’t have the required number of people to make a visible influence internationally. With such connectivity, critical mass between institutions will now happen,” said Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay Research and Development Dean Krithi Ramamritham.

Ramamritham said that while connectivity among IITs is not high presently as bandwidth is limited, the network will facilitate collaboration among various institutions of a calibre required for making a mark abroad. “This multiplication factor is missing today. Also, it (the network) will enable researchers to conduct experiments using resources available elsewhere without having to physically duplicate them,” he said.

Academicians say that the network will also be in keeping with global trends where research is “multi-disciplinary and collaborative”.

Dr Nagarjuna G, professor and in-charge of the “Gnowledge Lab” at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), said that such a network will encourage people to have “access”, an important aspect of collaborative research. “One of the reasons why people outside India are able to conduct research more efficiently is because they manage to remove the bottlenecks in terms of communication,” he said. The “Gnowledge Lab” helps in knowledge networking by “harvesting free knowledge”, creating an information base in the form of DVDs sent to remote areas.

Ramamritham added that the system will have to be continuously maintained and kept running all the time.

Meanwhile, welcoming the idea, Joyce Shankaran, Additional Chief Secretary (Higher and Technical Education) said: “It has a lot of scope and will give a fillip to joint research work.” Shankaran had recently told Newsline that the state government has proposed to start research societies for universities across the state with an eye on boosting and improving the quality of research.