heyn 16 July, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan laid the foundation of medical school at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. This will be the second medical school in the IIT system after a similar initiative at IIT Kharagpur. A large section of the Indian population can find this phenomenon in contrast to the ‘T’ in IITs. After all, the prevailing practice of 15-16 year olds deciding between ‘medical’ and ‘engineering’ still weighs heavily on the Indian middle-class psyche, and a fusion of the two probably inspires astonishment and confusion alike. ,
However, the event is a great confirmation of the growth of technical education in India, as it underscores a classic example of the idea of using technology to address social problems such as healthcare delivery. Such developments are long overdue in the DNA of the Indian innovation ecosystem, given global trends of rapidly breaking down walls between diverse disciplines in the quest to advance knowledge.
an advanced knowledge economy
The cornerstone of the IIT system was not only a building of an engineering institute, but was envisaged to be the cornerstone of ‘India’s insistence, and the future of building’. In the early years of independent India, it was important to create silos of excellence for various fields of scholarship, considering the requirements of skilled workforce in technical areas critical to nation building. Indeed, the promotion of sub-disciplines of specialization is a hallmark of the era of knowledge building for a manufacturing-led industrial revolution. In the following decades, a need emerged to combine solid technical prowess with the ability to think outside the box by bringing together multiple dimensions of inquiry, a phenomenon largely catalyzed by the emergence of a vibrant service sector.
After economic liberalization in the nineties, the progress of India’s story has certainly turned into strong aspirations of nurturing an advanced knowledge economy. In the information age, such systems thrive on breaking the shackles of traditional silos and looking to areas other than themselves for inspiration. Understanding the complex questions of the natural world, and consequent translation into applied domains, requires communication between the diverse fields of science, engineering, medicine, and indeed, the arts and humanities. Such an interaction between disciplines in the Indian academia is fundamental to characterizing India’s role as a 21st century leader in technological and scientific innovation.
Taking a cue from the evolution of a global research and development (R&D) culture and the imperative to further India’s footprint in it, the new National Educational Policy (NEP) proposes structural changes to enable stronger research institutions. NEP’s focus on collaborative research and interdisciplinary activities is to spark India’s rise in the global innovation landscape. This change in policy comes with efforts to diversify the scope of technical institutions in the country, for example, setting up of medical schools in IITs and centers of excellence in areas such as AI, energy, nanoscience etc. This expansion recognizes the value that can be achieved by integrating multiple streams under one institutional umbrella and the imperative to translate blue sky research into applied enterprises. For individual research groups, a cross-disciplinary outlook taps into a greater variety of thematic funding opportunities for greater opportunity for high-impact publications due to the unexpected innovation that blossoms through diverse aspects of expertise. Enables profit from the ability to do.
teaching vs research
The attainment of multidisciplinary academics finds expression in a variety of policy initiatives today, but there are ways to eliminate arbitrary boundaries. An important question is the apparent dilemma of integrating the components of teaching and research. While the inherent priority of graduate education has recently begun to change, professors are expected to excel in both teaching and research duties. This creates a need to recruit academic staff who, in addition to expertise in specialized areas of basic and applied research, have mastered substantial elements of the undergraduate curriculum of individual departments.
Two major issues arise from this. First, there is a dearth of high-caliber research professionals in India in many areas of strategic interest. Additionally, there is the question of having faculty for interdisciplinary initiatives, where the focus of research may be on multiple ‘departments’, and the background of potential faculty may not match the undergraduate teaching requirements in most of them.
One may therefore ask whether it is time for Indian academics to move beyond the expectation of providing research work from early career academics and encourage research groups where the teaching load is minimal in the interest of boosting research output. One consequence of these issues is the challenge that cross-domain specialists face in meeting pre-determined eligibility criteria in many of the calls for recruitment and funding of primary degree seekers in specialized disciplines. At the risk of creating controversy, I want to say that it is important to acknowledge that imparting knowledge and creating knowledge may not always be two sides of the same coin. Individuals may have a marked preference for either of them. Therefore, an important step forward may be to consider the development of a research professor who is not burdened by the responsibilities of curriculum administration.
Today, policy frameworks are taking shape to significantly promote indigenous innovation capabilities. The time has come to accelerate the transition with bold steps towards a cross-functional ecosystem. The early stages of the creation of centers of gathering elements of science and engineering in the nineties were as free for the Indian ecosystem as the first upright steps of our hominid ancestors centuries ago, and now marks the beginning of the Cambrian explosion of crosses. An opportune moment for Discipline in the interest of a resilient development of the Indian technology R&D narrative.
Arijit Patra is an engineer turned health care professional, having graduated as a Mechanical and Aerospace Engineer from IIT Kharagpur and a Doctor of Philosophy in Artificial Intelligence for Medical Imaging from Oxford University, where he studied at Rhodes Studied as a scholar. He is a scientist in the pharmaceutical industry. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Srinjoy Dey)