Entrepreneurial varsities, need of the hour

Updated on: Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Entrepreneurial universities that familiarise candidates with aspects of the economy, environmental issues, trade, marketing and management are the need of the hour in India, G. Thyagarajan, former Director of the Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI) said on Monday.

In his presidential address at the ‘CSIR Foundation Day' celebrations hosted at CLRI, Mr. Thyagarajan said the country required a new paradigm of human resource development and entrepreneurial universities could serve the purpose of reinforcing linkage between academia and industry.

Earlier, delivering the CSIR Foundation Day lecture, G. Bhaskaran, senior professor, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai and Distinguished Research Chair, Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Canada, gave an overview of the fantastic possibilities that had opened up with the advance of science and technology.

The pursuit of science was now a global collective and a collaborative exercise. Among the many roles of modern science was its demystifying mandate — where it steered clear of religion but came down heavily on astrology, omens and psychic powers, Mr. Bhaskaran said.

Science and modern technology also had the power to unite humanity while it had contributed to betterment of governance.

While science by itself had no national boundaries, world governments needed to cooperate to bring to fruition concepts like Japanese scientist Kitazawa's dream of a superconducting global power grid or magnetic levitated (maglev) trains that could solve the world's energy and transportation problems, he said.

“Bridge gap”

Balkrishna Bhosale, associate professor, University Department of Sociology, Mumbai, called for efforts to bridge the gap between science and the community by setting up “virtual laboratories” for leather artisans and tanners.

He also wanted scientific research institutions to reach out to the unorganised labour class that constituted 93 per cent of the workforce in the country.

Mohan Sreenivas, member, All India Skins and Hides Tanners and Merchants' Association, said the government and the industry needed to significantly scale up investments in R&D. A budgetary incentive that would encourage industries to earmark more funds for R&D could be the way forward, he said.

Entrepreneurial varsities, need of the hour

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