Coherent synergy for more researchers: Dr Chidambaram

Mumbai, May 31 (UNI) India's top scientific official today called for a ''coherent synergy'' between industry, educational institutions and the Government to make research more industry-specific.

Stating that India needed much more specialised post-graduates and researchers if it was to become the global technology leader, Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) to the Government of India Dr R Chidambaram urged the manufacturing industry and educational institutions to forge a viable synergy for bringing up more researchers and highly-qualified specialists.

He was speaking at a panel discussion on 'India's Leadership in Manufacturing: Role of Engineering Education', organised by Observer Research Foundation, here.

''Industry-specific research would help create more jobs for researchers and higher salaries with the help of industry,'' Dr Chidambaram said.

He said lack of proper salary was forcing bright students to go away from the path of higher education with even gold medalists in physics and maths Olympics not taking to research.

''The situation has to change. For this, demand for researchers has to increase,'' he stressed.

Dr Chidambaram also pointed out that there was a big disconnect between the applied research and product development of industry and the basic research carried out in educational institutions. He said this can be reduced with greater industry involvement with academic institutions.

According to a study on higher education there is an urgent need to launch a 'National PhD Initiative' in a ''mission mode'' to increase the engineering and science PhDs output ten-fold in a year and realise India's potential of becoming a global technology leader, Dr Chidambaram added.

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