PPPs today are nothing but business deals

PPPs today are nothing but business deals
Business Standard, August 24, 2009, Page 15

Praveen Bose & Bibhu Ranjan Mishra / New Delhi

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has been at the forefront of scientific research in India for nearly a century. The institute, the brainchild of the visionary Jamshetji Nusserwanji Tata, has produced many luminaries in science who have been at the vanguard of India's progress. At a time when the government is looking to setting up more IIScs across the country, the credibility of the new institutes could come under a cloud. Professor P Balaram, Director of IISc has a tete-a-tete with Praveen Bose & Bibhu Ranjan Mishra on the status of research in the country and challenges. Edited excerpts:

Has the economic slowdown had any impact on research activities at IISc?

I don't think the recession has had a major impact yet. The impact may be felt later. So far, there has been no decrease in funding. The public funding remains at reasonable levels though.

Is the government providing enough funds for research works?

Organised science with funding from the government is a recent phenomena. It is only in the ‘80s that some amount of moderate funding started coming from the government. In ‘90s, we have seen more money coming in. There has been more funding with the change in the economic condition influencing government investment in various sciences.

What is the main source of your funding?

The government is the primary supporter of research and education. We get about Rs 200 crore from the government every year as maintenance and development grant. Besides, we generate about Rs 150 crore from various projects sponsored by government departments and institutions. However, despite being the prime source of our funding, the government does not get as much mileage as private funders.

What about contributions from the private sector?

At the moment, private funding is insignificant. Private funding does not account for more than 10 per cent of our research expenses.

Individual faculty try to get projects on their own, but it does not benefit the institution enormously. Private funding today is not philanthropic.

Large private universities in the US have endowments that are phenomenally large; even bigger than the GDP of some countries.

With the government planning more IIScs, will this affect the quality of research?

Many new institutions have been planned or started. But they will be separate institutions and grow on their own. The government is not setting up institutions like the IISc. We are almost completely post-graduate and predominantly research-oriented. All new institutes planned by the government will be science-based with no focus on engineering. However, we focus equally on engineering and science.

Why are not enough PPP projects taking off at IISc?

People are only now talking about PPP model. IISc is the first example of PPP. It came up with an endowment from Jamshetji Tata and the government (then British and Mysore government). In case of this PPP, the philanthropist (Tata) was a philanthropist in the true sense. He wanted no control over the institution. This PPP model has not happened over the last 100 years. Now, PPP is nothing but almost business deals.

But what about the private chairs you are setting up?

Setting up a chair actually entails some money (may be a crore) as endowment, and a crore of rupees is nothing when people buy apartments for much more. It is not enough for meaningful research. They are token gestures. But we are making major efforts to increase private participation.

Who owns the IPs that result from joint research?

We have licensing agreements with the partners according to which we own the IP generated from the research.

What proportion of your research (IPs) gets productised?

About 99 per cent of our research don't translate into products. Only a small fraction results in something practically useful. But you can't get that 1 per cent till you do the 99 per cent research. Many a time scientists do research for their understanding. R&D can't be wasteful as it could always lead to further studies and research. A lot of it is being spent on educating people in methodologies.

Are you able to attract the same quality of people today as you used to do earlier?

Here we take a very small proportion of the applicants. Earlier we used to select about 600 students from a base of about 6,000 applicants, but now we are selecting may be the same number of people from amongst 60,000 applicants. So my personal feeling is that the overall quality of the students remain the same.

What other areas is IISc planning to enter?

We are launching a Centre for Earth Sciences for which we have begun to recruit faculty. We have also started the Centre for Neuroscience. We felt that research on neuroscience will play a big role in future. As our population grows older, you take more interest in the subject. The department will only expand in future. We have also set up a Centre for Climate Change. In partnership with the Karnataka, a Centre for Infrastructure, Urban Planning and Transport has started work in areas of civil and transportation engineering.

What are your plans on expanding infrastructure?

This year we are spending about Rs 140 crore on setting up new academic buildings and visiting houses. We are establishing new hostels since our existing ones are stressed. In the next 2-3 years, we will spend Rs 70 crore on these projects.