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Tuesday, 13 May 2014 00:35 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
“Inadequate funding and lack of a research policy are cause for poor performance in university research,” said Professor H.P.M. Gunasena delivering a convocation address at the University of Ruhuna recently.
Speaking on ‘The Importance of university research’ professor Gunasena said “Wilhelm von Humboldt, diplomat, politician and philosopher and the founder of the University of Berlin once said that, ‘Most of tomorrow’s economy is being born today in the university research laboratories.’ It is known that developed nations are moving away from manufacture based economies to the so called knowledge based economies that rely heavily on scientific research and a trained work force. The universities are the main reservoirs of knowledge and institutions that could generate cutting edge research. Our universities are producing a large numbers of graduates and postgraduates every year. They should remain as the main generators of knowledge and innovation.”
“More than 80% of the annual allocations of the universities are spent on recurrent expenditure and remunerations for employees leaving a budget of about Rs. 65 million for research, which gets distributed among the universities. The Gross Domestic Expenditure of Research (GDER) as a percentage of the GDP is about 0.18 which is very low compared to our neighboring countries. In India it is 0.84 and in Pakistan it is 0.5. The world average is about 1.4 and it is 2.5 in the USA and 1.8 in Western Europe. The net result is that the Sri Lankan Universities have not been able to maintain minimum standards to sustain a satisfactory research effort.
We have 15 national universities and another 13 research oriented institutions. The universities have more than the 60% of the R & D personnel in the country. Although there are more than 3250 potential researchers who hold PhD’s and Masters Degrees in the country the number of new innovations remain below 10 and the publications in peer reviewed journals rarely exceed 125 with the balance publications made in faculty / university journals and symposia. It should be noted that of the 30 or so journals published by the universities, only the Ceylon Medical Journal has reached citation index status. The inability to reach index status is a reflection of many factors among which the quality of articles, frequency and timeliness and the editorial process.
Attention of UGC and universities
This needs the attention of the University Grants Commission and the universities.
The recent trend is the holding of annual research sessions in many universities. This has become a colorful event due to the participation of both students and staff and a few international scientists. Recently, these symposia are termed as international symposia! If you look in to the details of the programs, the content is mostly short duration undergraduate research projects which do not produce high quality research or widely applicable innovations. This level of research satisfies the degree requirements of undergraduates and they amply support the promotion of staff. However, these small research projects are counted for merit promotion of academic staff.
Hence it may be desirable to revise the scheme of merit promotions and add more weight on high quality research. As research is a costly investment, prioritisation is important for selecting research which is of relevance to society.
When the provincial universities were established it was expected that the universities will interact with society by large and promote rural development. However, these universities appear to exist in isolation.
Society rarely consults these universities regarding research and development of the region. Similarly, the universities do not search for what research is needed by society. Thus, the research done by the universities is unused and gathers dust in the libraries. This gap between the universities and society can be overcome through appropriate research projects.
Attracting adequate funding for research is a continuing constraint for the universities. Sri Lanka has very few funding sources namely The University Grants Commission (UGC), the National Research Council (NRC), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Funds provided by these sources are on project basis and limited to about 3 years.
Hot topic
Industry – University collaboration is a hot topic when it comes to research funding. It is the main and most reliable source of funding in developed countries. In the USA 60% of the research is funded by the private industries. Japanese companies fund about 67% of Japan’s research and in Korea it is 84%. There is no such regular industry funding for university research in Sri Lanka. This is because the industrial sector is not strong in this country and is unable to provide sustained long-term funding for research. The local industries prefer to fund short – term problem solving research. Furthermore export oriented industries mostly depend on the imported technologies from their contacts abroad. The universities in advanced countries are closely linked with industry research and there is an increasing trend among universities to secure intellectual property from their research.
When the issue of funding is raised at research conferences, often we are told that funds are not a problem; the problem is that the researchers are not able to attract those funds. They attribute this mainly to inappropriate problem identification and poor proposal preparation. Research proposal preparation which is not a regular course in many universities has to be mastered first by the researchers. Hence, it is important that researchers are trained in writing effective research proposals to successfully canvas for funds.
Although the universities hold the cream of society and the most important resources that this country owns, the research outputs are unimpressive and the impacts are very low. The university research has neither supported university development nor national development. I wish to suggest the following to mobilise this massive resource to be more productive generators of knowledge and innovation to help the development of this country.
Research policy should encompass quality and relevance
The University Grants commission and the universities should develop a research policy which will encompass quality and relevance to address societal and industry needs. Faculties and departments in some universities with impressive track record of research involving highly qualified and experienced staff, students and facilities should identified and strengthened as Centers of Excellence for some branch of research.
As the universities often undertake research in isolation with little contact with relevant government organisations, industry, chambers of commerce and agencies, a high powered body should be established to form a strong national innovation system, promote research excellence and support emerging new areas of research in the universities.
