Some of the ideas which you might have already included but just in case
a) adherence to ethical citation protocols lie at the heart of raising research quality. Universities need to develop awareness about highest standards of citation practices not only with regard to published resources but also unpublished or oral resources. The knowledge rights of the people in informal sector are often ignored by researchers.
It should be obligatory on the part of researchers to acknowledge every knowledge /data provider by name and identity unless otherwise requested. The default condition is acknowledgement and not anonymity. This position will make India a pioneer in this respect because ssrc of usa and uk have not come this far.
b) Sharing of research findings with the knowledge providers in a way they can understand it will be obligatory in every state funded research project as a part of social responsibility of researchers. It goes without saying that in the process of sharing findings, communities will feel enriched and might even offer some new insights, which might improve quality of social research and remain elusive without such feedback to them.
c) Indian society is passing through a phase of transition from oral tradition to written traditions and thus proper repositories of such oral traditions of knowledge whether of very old traditional, or somewhat recent origin are an urgent societal need. These may include traditional knowledge of different kinds and may include languages and cultural institutional knowledge as well. Inter-university centre may be created to do only research on such traditions but also support preservation of endangered languages and functional secular traditions.
d) National innovation Foundation will be happy to act as not only a national repository of traditional technological /applied ecological knowledge. NIF will also try to ensure sharing of benefits in fair and just manner if any of this knowledge is diffused widely through commercial or non-commercial channels. Other national repositories will have to be created for cultural, artisanal and other such knowledge systems to promote and support future research on the same.
e) A consortium of INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHT firms be created to ensure that valid intellectual property in technological and other streams is protected at concessional terms. At the same time, open source courseware and other knowledge learning and sharing traditions must also be strengthened to make educational system more inclusive.
f) Leadership potential of vice chancellors may also be strengthened though appropriately designed capacity building programs so that existing best practices are shared and new initiatives are designed.
g) Msme clusters must be mapped with scientific and technological as well as social science departments/institutions so that problems of the msme entrepreneurs are taken up by students and faculty for time bound resolution. The Portal like Techpedia,in created by by sristi.org pooling 1summaries of 04k project done by 350k students from over 500 technical institutions provides a template of one model. Similar or same platform can be developed to pool and synergize national efforts.
h) Portal of not only technical projects but also M.Sc and Ph.D synopsis and summary of final thesis is required s to promote originality and create peer pressure for urgently improving quality of research. Concern was expressed that while in some departments students take 4-5 years to submit thesis after considerably rigorous resercah, some other department in many universities were churning out thesis of not so good quality in hundreds. Social scrutiny of all research is a must in a democratic and state funded research network. It will also promote innovations an create a kind of kho-kho or relay model of innovations in which ideas and projects done at one place may be taken by students at another place for further development.
i) Opportunities have to be provided to students to take courses and guidance not only from mentors across disciplines within one university but also across universities. Changes have to be made if needed in statues. Breakthrough almost always happen at the Intersection of disciplines and domains.
j) Start-ups be given space and facilities in universities at concessional terms
Anil K Gupta
