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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