Singh: ‘Politician by accident’

New Delhi, Dec. 3: India plans to set up a quasi-independent central panel that will fund and promote research in science and engineering, the Prime Minister announced today.

The panel, to be called the National Science and Engineering Research Board (NSERB), will be modelled on the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the US, Manmohan Singh said at the centenary celebrations of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

“It will provide unfettered financial assistance to researchers, academic institutions, research laboratories and industrial concerns,” Singh said.

Research in science and engineering in India is funded by both the government and industry.

But researchers have long complained that government agencies — such as the University Grants Commission — take months to clear project proposals, and subsequent delays in funding make it difficult to continue their study.

Industry is increasingly becoming the key funding agent for cutting-edge research, apart from strategic research. But industry-backed research is invariably market-oriented.

The NSERB will be an “autonomous body” with its own independent budget and a panel of experts who will have the power to decide on the project proposals to be funded, a government official said.

The board’s mandate may, however, not include funding medical research, the official indicated.

The board will identify key areas of research that are likely to benefit industry while propelling India to the forefront of cutting-edge research.

“The projects funded by the board will not cater only to industry. But the board will also ensure that valuable public funding is not spent on researching obscure ideas with little larger relevance,” the official said.

The NSF, the model for the board, was created as an independent federal agency by the US Congress in 1950 “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defence” in America.

It has an annual budget of over $6 billion and funds around 20 per cent of all federally-sponsored fundamental scientific research at universities and colleges across the US. It also funds social science research.

Annually, it funds around 10,000 new research projects. NSF-funded researchers have won more than 170 Nobel Prizes.

The first Bose-Einstein condensate — a new state of matter first predicted by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein — was created using the foundation’s funds.

PM’s first love

The Prime Minister today said he’d rather be a teacher, as politicians across the board face flak over the Mumbai terror attacks.

“I am a politician only by accident. Teaching has been my first love. My days as a teacher have been the most enjoyable part of my life,” Singh said after opening two science institutes in Bangalore.

Later, inaugurating the centenary celebrations of the Indian Institute of Science, he said a scientific temper would help build a knowledge-based society and economy.

“We need an opening of the Indian mind. We cannot allow unreason to dominate reason and intolerance to threaten the spirit of tolerance and dispassionate enquiry that is at the heart of Indian culture,” Singh said.