India needs strong Mechanism for better research

KOCHI: Breakthrough research papers hardly find their way into globally indexed and reviewed journals. Of the 3,500 science and technology journals, only 18,000 have been reviewed, accepted and indexed and among them only about 80 are from India. A strong mechanism is required to review quality and content, said P Pit Pichappan, visiting professor, China’s Ningbo University of Technology, University of Zululand in South Africa and University of Macau, Macau.He was speaking at a workshop on ‘Profiling Research Publications for Quality Research’ at Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat) organised by the University Library on Tuesday. Most of the research papers are published in journals which are not reviewed and accepted, and the quality is low. Unless the government and universities make it mandatory for research scholars and faculty members to publish papers in accepted journals, the quality of research will remain low, he said. Brain drain, poor funding, improper laboratories, lack of mentoring support etc, affect research in India, he said. “We have lost all our mentors. China is trying to counter it effectively by bringing them back and it reflected in their output,” he said.China’s contribution to global research has risen from 0.05 per cent to 11 per cent while India’s rise is meager, from 2 to 2.5 per cent. It is sad that none of the institutions find a place among the 100 best in the world. Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and IIT Kharagpur stand out among the best 500 institutions in the world and only the IISc and IITs are placed on the best 1000 list, he said.Researchers tend to follow a standard way and methodology improvement is required. New ideas should be exploited and abstracts of earlier papers explored. That papers should be about 175 pages, is a misconception. Brevity is the soul of good paper. Einstein’s C60 comprised only two pages. Many papers have been rejected due to bad presentation and writing. The dearth of mentors can be compensated through collaboration, he said.