'Research is philosophy, needs to be practised like religion'

The national discussion meet on Research Innovation and Work-plan' began at Panjab University (PU) on Thursday with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) chairman S S Mantha delivering the inaugural address.

Vice chancellors and deans from various leading universities and research institutes of the country and heads of a few regulatory bodies are participating in the two-day meet.

Describing research and innovation as a growth vehicle, Mantha said research was the heart while innovation was the soul. "Together the growth vehicle will speed up and in the absence of either, it would sputter and backfire," he added. He said that research was a philosophy and needed to be practised like religion.

"Many students in IT and technical colleges undertake copy-paste jobs while developing their projects as part of their curriculum but it doesn't help," Mantha said. The AICTE chairperson said that with the advent of cloud, the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise should share its data with AICTE. "AICTE, in turn, could encourage colleges to occupy and script their enterprise applications on a piece of cloud that they could acquire to be used as their lab. Let each college buy a piece of the cloud that propagates millions of nurseries with a potential to raise the MSMEs and spur innovation to deliver quicker, better and more competitive products from the MSMEs," he added.

Mantha added that the shackles of regulatory systems needed to be broken and free enterprise allowed to promote research and innovation. "We need to create ecosystems that enable environments to flourish in research and innovation in our institutions. We need to define dynamic structures that bring out the best in our youth," he added.