Review
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With the number of institutions of higher education in the country growing rapidly,
there has been a concomitant increase in the numbers of academics and other professionals
engaged in research and development. They need adequate and upto-date facilities - or access to
such facilities - to engage in meaningful R&D efforts. Though various agencies of the
Government fund the acquisition of equipment and establishment of laboratories,
it is the efficient utilization of such facilities that enables high productivity in R&D.
Towards this goal, I-STEM is a novel, thoughtful, and greatly empowering concept,
as it aims to provide all aspiring and qualified researchers access to public-funded facilities
in the country in a transparent and convenient manner through a WebPortal.
In addition to hosting a database of facilities in all parts of the country,
the Portal is expected to become the gateway through which reservations to
use equipment can be made in a manner convenient to the user and the custodian
of a given facility. ln addition, it will become possible for users to consult
experts in various fields to be empanelled. I hope and expect that the I-STEM
project and Portal will enable researchers everywhere in the country to explore
their unique ideas, secure in the assurance that they can gain access to the
required facilities through I-STEM. I expect that this unique initiative will
spread the spirit of collaboration and cooperation among the R&D community in the country,
taking us further along the road to innovation, prosperity, and wellbeing.
The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has been an agency of long standing in funding R&D and innovation, primarily in academic and research institutions across the country. In addition to providing grants to investigators for meritorious proposals, DST has been a major source of funding building of R&D infrastructure in the country’s academia via a number of schemes: FIST (Funds for Infrastructure in Science and Technology), PURSE (Promotion of University Research and Scientific Excellence), SAIF (Sophisticated Analytical Instrument Facilities), and the newest SAIF-like program, SATHI (Sophisticated Analytical and Technical Help Institute), and through thousands of research projects and a plethora of Centres of Excellence.
Through several “rounds” of FIST and PURSE, projects and Centres, substantial R&D infrastructure has been established in a large number of institutions in the country.
However, such facilities are not easily and universally accessible to researchers in institutions with less R&D focus and to industry (including MSMEs) and start-ups. The various SAIFs across the country are meant to provide access to analytical facilities to all – from the academia, as well as industry. Indeed, over the years, tens of thousands of researchers from institutions big and small, and from industry, have benefited from the SAIFs.However, with a rapid expansion of our S&T ecosystem and increasing emphasis on R&D programs, there is still an unmet need for ever more S&T infrastructure, including a variety of specialized instruments, from analytical testing to fabrication to research resources. Hence, it is highly desirable and hugely beneficial if the existing infrastructure, in its period of latency, is shared with transparency and ease of access. Equipment, even when not used extensively, becomes obsolete. They also often require resources for maintenance and manpower. Sharing of our resources addresses these twin problems while making our investments more effective. Active and regular sharing of S&T facilities also activates the latent scientific manpower which resides in the remote regions, and in the smaller and less endowed institutions.
The I-STEM web portal (Indian Science, Technology, and Engineering facilities Map) addresses this vital need directly, by enabling a transparent and convenient way to list and share public-funded R&D facilities with researchers who need to use them, from anywhere across the country. This portal is a live inventory of sharable resources, which should aid in the planning of our current research projects, as well as provide an evidenced-based roadmap for the future expansion of public-funded facilities. I-STEM portal allows for online scheduling of time to use a facility, and for secure online payments that help partially defray the cost. Just as importantly, the I-STEM program has the potential to promote cooperation and collaboration among researchers, leading to outcomes beneficial to the growth of science, technology, and innovation.
I therefore urge all institutions and researchers to abide by the Government’s mandate to list R&D facilities in their labs, groups, and centres on the I-STEM portal, and to share them for the benefit of all the stakeholders of S&T in the nation. It’s indeed both our individual and collective Scientific Social Responsibility to do so!
It has been felt for some time that facilities in our academic institutions and national labs, acquired or established through government funding, should be made available to a wider community through a web portal. We have experience in this context with large facilities like the Synchrotron radiation sources, Indus-1 and Indus-2 at RRCAT and the nanoelectronics centres in IISc Bangalore and IIT Bombay. The CeNSE Bangalore also has experience in creating a regional portal for advanced facilities and is best equipped to establish the Indian Science Technology and Engineering facilities Map (I-STEM), which will provide details of equipment/facilities, which could be used by students, researchers and other legitimate users through an on-line reservation system. This web-based portal will need to be constantly updated. I am sure that I-STEM will be a great success and will be widely used.
It seems only appropriate that CeNSE, which emerged from an earlier initiative of the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser, is now being accorded the privilege of being the host to the I-STEM Web Portal. Our Centre was conceived and established as a national resource, and its facilities have been formally open for use by academic researchers from around the country through the Indian Nanoelectronics Users Program (INUP), supported strongly by MeitY, Govt. of India. In its tenth year now, INUP has been a great success. Under INUP, hundreds of researchers have received hands-on training in CeNSE facilities, in which they have carried out sophisticated research projects that have resulted in PhD theses, publications in international journals and conferences, and numerous patent filings. Through I-STEM, the INUP is now being infused into publicly-funded facilities everywhere in the country. We are confident that the sharing of facilities and the spirit of collaboration underlying I-STEM will enhance R&D productivity in the country.