The current model of doing research inside universities is flawed.
If research itself becomes a fort of citationers, going around the topic without making it relevant to the real world, without investigating any context, it is dead wrong. Paid or commissioned research fails easily if it does not address a heroic assumption, a logical failure or a painful inflammation of ill-fitting results. If start ups are devices to build entrepreneurs, we even need vehicles to do meaningful research.
The guide of the person who enrols into research is often the weakest link. His knowledge of the latest developments is suspect. He has neither written enough research nor experimented with ideas after his own initial foray into research. This model is supplanted by the model of presenting papers and citations. Papers rarely elucidate methodologies to guarantee reproducibility and mostly talk about results. It forces a new researcher to investigate whatever is trending, but research that way is nettled by groupthink. Neither by the guide, nor by the peer group, do we pose large, challenging questions.
Western companies are smart to cherry-pick best ideas from government funded research and build it into saleable goods and services. Oriental companies just reverse engineer or imitate, and even then mostly the product of the previous generation. Western companies now know it better that world markets are divided mongst those which are willing to pay for innovation and those which aren't. Hence when FB comes to India it makes Free Basics its agenda.
Mostly companies want to keep a boiler room atmosphere of securing short term results. This is not conducive to research. Research needs a focus group approach to find a way forward. It has to churn history of achievements and failures and see which can be cornerstone for another. It even requires some time to shut the white noise. Thanks to data mining and computational methods, a lot of work can be done without hit and trial.
The government bodies or 1% mandatory funding by corporates should enable us to do the following. We have draw up a canvas of cross disciplinary agenda. There should be a body to handle knowledge management (unlike the idea of museums) that critically runs the gauntlet and points out what was the past, what is the present and what is trending. There should be another body to hold public seminars on the questions to be investigated as the way forward. Yet another public body of scientists should verify and reproduce results before publishing. Research can be motivated by recognition and ample reward. That way we can weed out irrelevant topics and drive focus on building an equitable and secure future.
Obviously those from finance would like to clinch achievements ideas and turn them into saleable companies. Nothing objectionable there but that then it should carry a reverse patent protection. For the first ten years the royalty should accrue to the public / government bodies. In some cases the public good should prevail and pricing should be low enough for everyone to benefit.
If research itself becomes a fort of citationers, going around the topic without making it relevant to the real world, without investigating any context, it is dead wrong. Paid or commissioned research fails easily if it does not address a heroic assumption, a logical failure or a painful inflammation of ill-fitting results. If start ups are devices to build entrepreneurs, we even need vehicles to do meaningful research.
The guide of the person who enrols into research is often the weakest link. His knowledge of the latest developments is suspect. He has neither written enough research nor experimented with ideas after his own initial foray into research. This model is supplanted by the model of presenting papers and citations. Papers rarely elucidate methodologies to guarantee reproducibility and mostly talk about results. It forces a new researcher to investigate whatever is trending, but research that way is nettled by groupthink. Neither by the guide, nor by the peer group, do we pose large, challenging questions.
Western companies are smart to cherry-pick best ideas from government funded research and build it into saleable goods and services. Oriental companies just reverse engineer or imitate, and even then mostly the product of the previous generation. Western companies now know it better that world markets are divided mongst those which are willing to pay for innovation and those which aren't. Hence when FB comes to India it makes Free Basics its agenda.
Mostly companies want to keep a boiler room atmosphere of securing short term results. This is not conducive to research. Research needs a focus group approach to find a way forward. It has to churn history of achievements and failures and see which can be cornerstone for another. It even requires some time to shut the white noise. Thanks to data mining and computational methods, a lot of work can be done without hit and trial.
The government bodies or 1% mandatory funding by corporates should enable us to do the following. We have draw up a canvas of cross disciplinary agenda. There should be a body to handle knowledge management (unlike the idea of museums) that critically runs the gauntlet and points out what was the past, what is the present and what is trending. There should be another body to hold public seminars on the questions to be investigated as the way forward. Yet another public body of scientists should verify and reproduce results before publishing. Research can be motivated by recognition and ample reward. That way we can weed out irrelevant topics and drive focus on building an equitable and secure future.
Obviously those from finance would like to clinch achievements ideas and turn them into saleable companies. Nothing objectionable there but that then it should carry a reverse patent protection. For the first ten years the royalty should accrue to the public / government bodies. In some cases the public good should prevail and pricing should be low enough for everyone to benefit.
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