FOLLOWING IS THE REPORT Report of Workshop Creation and Dissemination of
Knowledge, 27-29 July New Delhi 2009
KINDLY PUBLISH IT LIS-FORUM
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Before we take a look at what transpired in the Workshop Creation and
Dissemination of Knowledge let us take a look the evolution of Indian Policy
framework in creating Knowledge in last fifty years. Let us go five decades
back and recall one of the very very significant clauses of Science Policy
Resolution 1958, Para 3:
It is only through the scientific approach and method and the use of
scientific knowledge that reasonable material and culturtal amenities and
services can be provided for every member of the community, and it is out if
a recognition of this possibility that the idea of a welfare state has
grown. It is charateristic of present world that the progress towards the
practical realisation of a welfare state difefrs widely from country in
diret relation to the extent of industrialisation and the effort and
resources applied in the pursuit of science.
Then Technology Policy Statement, 1983 recognised that key to successfully
develop indigenous capability in technology demands a conscious integrated
approach covering technology assessment, development,, acquisition,
absorption, utilization and diffusion and connected aspects of financing,
based on overall national interests, priorities and the attainment of the
most challenging technological goals.
Further, in recent years Science and Technology Policy, 2003 this shift
becomes more visible... To ensure that message of science reaches every
citizen of India, man and woman, young and old, so that we advance
scientific temper, emerge as a progressive and enlightened society, and make
it possible for all our people to participate fully in the development of
science and technology and its application for human welfare. Indeed science
and technology will be fully integrated with all spheres of national
activity.
Going ahead adding the emphasis in another clause S& T Policy says;
There is growing need to enhance public awareness of the importance of
science and technology in everyday life, and the directions where science
and technology is taking us. People must be able to consider the
implications of emerging science and technology options in areas which
impinge directly upon their lives, including the ethical and moral, legal,
social and economic aspects. In recent years, advances in biotechnology and
information technology have dramatically increased public interest in
technology options in wide ranging areas. Scientific work and policies
arising from these have to be highly transparent and widely understood.
Support for wide dissemination of scientific knowledge, through the support
of science museums, planetaria, botanical gardens and the like, will be
enhanced. Every effort will be made to convey to the young the excitement in
scientific and technological advances and to instill scientific temper in the
population at large. Special support will be provided for programmes that
seek to popularize and promote science and technology in all parts of the
country. Programmes will also be developed o promote learning and
dissemination of science through the various national languages, to enable
effective science communication at all levels. A closer interaction of those
involved in the natural sciences and technology, social sciences, humanities
and other scholarly pursuits will be facilitated to bring about mutual
reinforcement, added value and impact.
Above listed three beliefs and policy objectives have consistent flow in
itslef. In 1958 we recognised power of scientific approach and believed that
it is capable to make us realise the idea of welfare state. Again in 1983 we
underlined the might of technology competence and self reliance in
technological capabilities which can reduce vulnerability, perticularly in
strategic and critical areas. The year 2003 marks the necessity of public
understanding of science and value of participation in the stream of
scientific and technological progress of the country. In this context I
share with you about the workshop "CREATION AND DISSEMINATION OF KNOWLEDGE"
conducted by International Management Institute and sponsored by Department
of Scientific and Industrial Research, Ministry of Science and Technology
during New Delhi 27-29 July 09.
Inugerating the workshop Dr. Jyoti Bhat who is technical adviser in DSIR
tried to ignite the minds about the need of communication. She said, "People
always feel need of new knowledge. This new knowledge always leads to
development of new capabilties by inspring the younger generation to move
towards careers in science and technology. This emotional transition which
is marked by urge to have new, sophisticated, state of the art knowledge is
hallmark of this emerging society. When people crave for accurate, relevant
and structural knowledge it shapes Human Capital Transformation in a sense
it directs the efforts of communicator in developing Intellectual assests
for organisations. This knowledge creation and transfer happens in three
stages:
a) From scarce capabilties to knowledge transfer
b) Knowledge adaptation and dissemination
c) Cross border knowledge creation and transfer
Here she laid emphasises on need of collaboration being the urgent strategy
of the organisations, departments, industries and a nation as a whole. She
stressed that for effective knowledge utilisation, strengthening economic
and institutional regime, developing educated and skilled workers, creating
efficient innovation system and building dynamic information infrastructure
are the strict imperatives.
To move in this direction bearing strategic perspective one needs to
visualise the urgent and pressing need of : enhancement of knowledge base,
awareness building about science-technology issues, building of more
Technology Management Resource Centres, Curriculum Development about
Innovation, recognising the role of teachers in inspiring new generation
towards science and technology, more imaginative and modern media for
information dissemination. setting up of the academic chairs promoting
research environment !!!
Prof. Ashok Chandra who is Director of Centre for Managing of Innovation and
Technology, IMI shared his experiences of formulating the National Education
Policy, 1986. He said, "We must treat process of policy formulation as
utmost importan rather than result of policy formulation. The identification
of the numerous stakeholders and timely participation of the all people will
certainly give birth to mature consultation and the draft coming out of the
deliberations will be of immense acceptance value and reach due to prior
interaction. He advocated that we should use the process of policy
formulation for effective communication and thus to educate about
ingredients of the technical issues involved in the subject of debate. Any
policy is reflection of agenda of diverse interest groups involved in that
process. Thus differing viewpoints must be reconciled and thus harmonisation
in Policy Objectives can be achieved. All social, cultural and economic
spheres in that specific context must be considered for that matter. Thus
likewise policy always respond to the external changes and the revised and
reviewed policy must have some tangible committment in terms of deadline and
quantitative targets in terms of performance-productivity index.
Dr. Vinay Kumar, former Adviser to Ministry of Science and Technology
stressed upon "Freedom of Expression" in the organisation leading to
innovation. He emphasised on Management support to new ideas,
motivation-award policy, toleration of failure, positive outlook and
exposing employees to new experiences and directions. *
Prof. M. K. Khanijo* who is expert in *Engineering & Technology Employment
Generation* descritbed in detail profile of Indian skilled manpower. He
narrated the needs, strategies and significance of Human Resource
Development in India with special reference to recent research work carried
out.
Dr. Naresh Kumar, Head, R&D Planning Division, CSIR described in detail
about the emerging platform of Open Source Drug Discovery(OSDD- OSDD is a
CSIR-led Team India consortium with a global partnership. It's vision is to
provide affordable healthcare to the developing world by providing a global
platform where the best minds can collaborate & collectively endeavor to
solve the complex problems associated with discovering novel therapies for
neglected tropical diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, leishmaniasis, etc.
It is a concept to collaboratively aggregate the biological and genetic
information available to scientists in order to use it to hasten the
discovery of drugs. This will provide a unique opportunity for scientists,
doctors, technocrats, students and others with diverse expertise to work for
a common cause.) His focus was "Information in Open Source Domain: A Tool
for Knowledge Creation and Dissemination for new drug of TB". He emhaised
again and again that the wisdom does not lie only in the four walls of the
organisation, it is always scattered outside. Our challenge is to get ,
organise and disseminate that information for betterment of the initiative
for which organisation is striving.
He said that present IT infrastructure, connectivity and high throughput
analysis capability makes OSDD possible. Going ahead he threw light on the
shifting paradigms of Computational Biology. In traditional biology where
things were shaped by classical, basic experimentation in low throughput
where animal studies were having prominence in this new OSDD knowledge
sharing model, research in Combinaitonal Chemistry, Genomics, Proteonomics,
Metabolomics, Biotechnology is enhanced by high throughput analysis and
molecular imaging. To support this massive initiative to discover new drud
for T.B. due to which one person per minute is being killed in India and
there has been no credible drug discovered uptill now after 1966 marks the
strategic significance. While explaining this "Open Model of Knowledge
Access", he laid immense stress on OPEN SYNTHESIS while organising knowledge
addressing TARGET MOLECULE which in turn will pass through SCREENING to
finally move towards DRUG DEVELOPMENT before we allow PRE-CLINICAL AND
CLINICAL TRIALS by Contract Research Organisations.
P. Banerjee, Director, NISTADS spoke about Organising Scholarly Community
while realisng the responsibilities of proffessional occupation like to create
knowledge, to develope the skills and to nurture the attitudes of
proffessionals. He said that dynamism of organisation depends not on
devising new produciton function but to devise new channels by which
continous learning and regeneration of ideas is possible. In a hierarchic
organisaion it is always possible that bundling and unbundling of the
information may be done by the seniors or established people while if given
chance juniors may come out with wondeful ideas. While it should be
remembered that traditional approaches of creativity based on the diktat and
authority are collapsing the proffessional standards and disciplinary
boundaries are new masters of the innovation.
He further said that proffessional spirit is weakest in India compared to
best practises in the world. He cited his study about mindset of Indian
Research Laboratories in forging active collaboration for research inside
city, outside city and across the national borders. He consistently pointed
out with proven facts that Indian Researchers are not even willing to share
information (let alone knowledge ?) across the walls in the same research
organisaitons as Science Citation Index and other Indexes indicate toward
reluctance of Indian researchers in citing fellow scientists compared to
enthusiasm of Chinese in doing so about their fellow Chinese scholars. This
in comparison with China, he said, is also sadly true about degree of
investment per scientific Human Resource, number of conferences being held,
ability to spend the allocated money, number of scientific instruments being
purchased, number of guest faculties being invited to Indian Universities
and Research Institutes, growth of proffessional bodies in the country and
most importantly REALISING THE COLLABORATION POSSIBILTIES.
Eventually to highlight the features of robust research system which India
needs to develop, he stressed upon a) Improvement of research performance,
b) Improvement of research quality and c) Improvement of Innovation
Performance.
TWorkdhop highlighted the need to have more and more interaction between
social sciences and enginnering sciences. Describing the importance of this
interction, in of the sessions Prof. Ashok Chandra told delegates about *Two
Cultures which is a book published *50 years ago. C>P. Snow, an English
physicist, civil servant and novelist, delivered a lecture at Cambridge
called “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution,” came in book form.
Snow’s famous lament was that “the intellectual life of the whole of Western
society is increasingly being split into two polar groups,” consisting of
scientists on the one hand and literary scholars on the other. So why did
Snow think the supposed gulf between the two cultures was such a problem?
Because, he argues in the latter half of his essay, it leads many capable
minds to ignore science as a vocation, which prevents us from solving the
world’s “main issue,” the wealth gap caused by industrialization, which
threatens global stability. "
Finally to end the summary of the workshop we can recall verbatim of Winston
Churchil that "Empires of the future will be certainly empires of the
mind...!!!"
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Rahul Sudhakar Mane (09654093359)
Centre for Study in Science Policy,
School of Social Sciences,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi-67
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