Innovation, science are basis of long-term economic health: V. Ramakrishnan
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan speaks about the challenges faced by science and scientists today and India's need for more first-rate institutions
New Delhi: Royal Society president and Nobel Prize-winning structural biologist Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, in an interview, spoke about the importance of science for a country’s economic health, the challenges faced by science and scientists today, India’s need for more first-rate institutions, and more. Edited excerpts:
You are now leading the Royal Society, a 350-year-old institution which has had eminent scientists like Isaac Newton and Ernest Rutherford at the helm. What does it mean to be president of the organization today and how are you working on keeping it relevant?
There are several things that the Royal Society is involved in. If you look at its broad goals, it is the recognition and promotion of science and promotion of science for the benefit of humanity. Those are very broad goals. The way you need to implement this is, you need to improve general public understanding of science and get support for science both from government and public. It involves trying to improve science education, involves exchange programmes with other countries, because many aspects of science are international in nature. So I am interested essentially in all these things. Ultimately, I would like to mould a more rational and evidence-based policy from governments as well as a rational outlook from people.
What are the major challenges that science faces across the world?
In terms of support, science has to make a case for why it is important to support science, and that is for us scientists to make. That innovation and science are really the basis of the long-term economic health for any country. If you look at countries which are rich in natural resources but poor in innovation, you will find that those countries are not really doing so well. Conversely, you will find that countries which have almost no resources, but are innovative with technology, for instance, are doing well. So it is clear that the basis of public well-being is innovation and a knowledge-based society. This is something that is very important to be able to communicate.
One thing I forgot is that science is a part of human culture. As human beings, we have discovered all sorts of things about the universe, about ourselves. For instance, how heredity has a molecular base, is something 200 years ago you couldn’t imagine was possible and this is a triumph of human achievement. Science is about exploring the universe and the natural world and discovering things about it. It is really the most interesting occupation you can have.
You think Indian institutes are able to promote this spirit?
I think some of the institutes are doing that. That shows that certainly in many places the system is working. But of course it is highly variable and India is a big country and needs many more first-rate places. That will take investment and also time because it is not enough to build a building, you have to find the right people to work there and that often takes more time than just putting up a building.
You have also talked about how science is not being taken seriously at the Indian Science Congress...
I think there is a need to have a meeting where the Prime Minister can address a nation-wide group of scientists and talk about his or her plans for the next year or future plans for science. I also think it is important for scientists and government to get together and talk about policy. I also think that the function of the Indian Science Congress is very broad-based and most scientific meetings are in narrow disciplines, very specialized. But if they are broad-based then scientists learn about what is going on in completely different fields, so that is also good. But the way the Indian Science Congress is... it is very large and chaotic. After this year’s congress, I met a Nobel laureate who said that he had to wait two hours just to get registered. This simply creates a very bad impression of India. They also go through enormous expense to bring these famous scientists to the congress and they just come and give a talk and leave. That is not a very good use of money and I think there are much better ways to do this and my feeling is that the government should look into possibly finding alternative ways of doing this.
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