Science and technology should be used to bridge the gap in society, including climate change. Students need to be encouraged to take up international collaborations. Global challenges call for global collaborations and partnerships, bringing together the best and brightest scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to work together, according to Nandini Kannan, Executive Director, Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF).

Such collaboration will provide access to unique perspectives and approaches, leverage the limited resources and infrastructure, share insights and knowledge, and finally allow one to create new networks and a globally-engaged workforce, Kannan added.

She was addressing participants of Research Day held at SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRMIST), Kattankulathur where 146 researchers were presented with medals. As chief guest of the event, Kannan honoured the researchers and released the CD of abstract on the occasion.

Among those honoured was Satyajit Mohapatra from SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre (SRM MCH&RC) who brought in the funding of ₹1.6 crore. Mohapatra was the principal investigator of the Covaxin trial held at SRM MCH&RC. The hospital has recently opened a 5,000 sq feet hi-tech research faculty called the ‘SRM Centre for Clinical trials and Research.’

Preparing a future-ready workforce

The National Education Policy (NEP) encourages international students to study in India and provides greater mobility to Indian students to visit, study at, transfer credits to, or conduct research at institutions abroad, said Kannan. “It also facilitates research/teaching collaborations and faculty/student exchanges with top international institutions, it also encourages high performing Indian universities to set up campuses in other countries.”

Highlighting the challenges and opportunities in higher education, she said, “Universities should move towards a tech-driven, outcome-based model, incorporating new pedagogy through flipped classroom, MOOCs, online assessments, hands-on instruction, just-in-time teaching, team-taught courses to foster inter-disciplinarily, research in undergraduate programmes and so on.”

She added that the main challenge that universities face is preparing a global workforce of tomorrow. “Automation or emerging technologies are radically changing the workplace. Therefore academic institutions need to be nimble, flexible, and adapt to keep pace with these new technologies.” She concluded by emphasising the importance of research.

Research infrastructure

Vice-Chancellor C Muthamizhchelvan, in his address, said, “At SRMIST, Research Day is done to promote interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary learning among research scholars.” Presenting the research statistics, he said, at SRMIST a lot of collaborative research is encouraged among faculty. He also urged students to submit quality papers.

“SRMIST has a huge infrastructure and labs and these need to be used efficiently. We have several centres of excellence. This year we opened two such centres one for energy and the other for the environment.”

Present on the occasion were SRMIST’s Vice-Chancellor C Muthamizhchelvan; Pro Vice-Chancellor (Medical) Lt Col A Ravikumar; Registrar S Ponnusamy; Controller of Examination K Gunasekaran; other Directors and Deans.