The Urgency of UG-Research and Multidisciplinary Collaboration

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes."

-Marcel Proust

Why Bose.X in India? "Opportunities near … and far ..."

We all may have noticed that developing countries are not going much further in innovation and research or just work up to some initial phase only. However, they also do not have many contributions to development, and it creates pressure on India like countries. There are many unavoidable challenges, but we have to be with these challenges and have to work with them. How to work within such cases? For this, we need support, require a pool of knowledgeable people, and the self-sustained motivational thrust. We talked about self-motivation, which seems more of a theoretical concept until someone has achieved something and hard for everyone except few.

We knew that Abdul Kalam struggled and studied indigenously only while staying in India. Sir kalam could sustain himself carefully, and this is not doable by every person. Do we want a single Kalam? Should we not make a thousand Kalams in the next 20-30 years? If we cannot do this, we can be far behind in contributing to sustainable development and next-generation innovations. Scientists or innovators are known as global citizens, and our orientation must be towards humanity, so we do not have to see it only as a country in this race. Moreover, kalam is just an example. We can expand up with a thousand such persons. Similarly, we also lack a hundred CV Raman's in science, Ambani, and Tata like people in the business. One thing we should note that all kinds of these personalities exist around us, and they need a catalyst because everyone not meant to be self-sustained scientists, innovators, or business characters. Once, prof H C Verma said that,

India's population is also a problem and gives us recognition in other ways.

See how? India has more than 1.3 billion population, and it has been always a problem for a quality work environment and policy implementation. However, at the same time, due to the massive population, 100-500 people are able to sustain their craziness and cross the barrier provided by the policy, our environment, and so-called society. And, those 100 are the example of Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella and Pranav Mistry, etc., and making India proud. Again, many times we favor producing such personalty, but we overlook that they did not just get the education in IITs or other Indian reputed universities. Most of them completed their masters and Ph.D. in the top colleges of the world. Furthermore, we are just fine with the current systems and policies and do not even dare to challenge them because we produced google CEO and a few MIT professors (Just giving an example).

IITs and NITs are just working as a filter to this populous country. How? Leaving for homework. We need to reform it and not just copy and paste other's polices because we have different conditions here and have to think indigenously. It reminds me of one of the most famous proverbs,

"Frog is also a king in the well."

It's not about criticizing anything but exerting the realty in the deliberation; good things take time and writing because it hurts. So let us return to the number, are we able to contribute to that proportion? The simple answer is no. Do we want to remain in this messy policy, or do we have enough willpower to work for it and prepare in more numbers? Furthermore, In practical, we can, and we have enough potential.

We all must have noticed that students who are completing their bachelor's in IITs like renowned institutions and never go for a Ph.D. in the same institute, only a few exceptions. It means that we are not in the condition to satisfy our students with the best education and research facilities. "Until we can convince them to do a Ph.D. in the same institute, we must not live in a relaxed attitude."

One question always bothered, why is India not producing more Nobel Laureates? In search of the answer, came across the article by the director of the International Center of Theoretical Science, TIFR, Prof Gopakumar. He also asked a few similar questions, taking the same words.

"How can India be the home to creative breakthroughs that alter the scientific landscape; how can we nurture a Nobel Laureate, Fields medalist, or Turing awardee? How do we prepare the ground to bring about such a shift? What prevents us from making this happen?"

Moreover, the main point from his article was about the lack of undergraduate research and interdisciplinary collaboration. Our research centers are also often cut off from the undergraduates who will become future scientists and industries that could be a source of problems and ideas. [1]

We cannot get directly to anyone for the same. For this, we must do it in a planned move and we are trying it in the institutions right now. We necessitate finding the precise vehicle that can lead the vision ahead without getting hindered. We will need help from all of you who have maintained their self-motivation amid all the challenges and difficulties. Whoever has experienced or will become one of them, have to bring all of them into one collaborative platform and work towards finding the best possible path. Following are a few practical pieces of information,

Each profound scientific country has some nodal center, where they bring the best scientists together in a single platform to collaborate and work on frontier questions in the basic sciences and emerging technologies through specially curated and, often, multidisciplinary programs. For Ex. in USA Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton, the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) at Santa Barbara, in Canada Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, and Max-Plank Society in Germany, etc. In India, ICTS, Bangalore may become a nodal center, but we need many to align undergraduate and grad student's research potential.

Yes, criticizing or making excuses is not the solution to this; it demands the investment of our time and patience. In the present, Bose.X is not in the stage to provide solutions to all the challenges mentioned above, but we have to work like stubborn to create a platform of such kind.

Someone may have different observations, if you disagree with any point or have something to add please write in the comment section, it will help in framing the best vision.

#research #innovation #science #technology #nobel #reform

_by Ankul Prajapati, Contact -LinkedIn, or ResearchGate.