Country’s contribution in field of Science and Technology

Introduction

India ranks sixth in the world with respect to scientific publications, growing at a rate of 13.9% as against the world average growth rate of 4.1% during 2009-13. Country's share of world S&T research output has grown from 3.1% in 2009 to 4.4% in year 2013. As per Elsevier Report 2016 based on SCOPUS database, India's level of contribution in the field of science and technology in terms of volume of research papers, global share and citation impact are growing at a fast pace. India produced 106,065 research papers in the year 2013 as compared to 62,955 in year 2009. India produced more research papers than countries such as Italy, Canada, Spain, Australia, Korea, Brazil, Sweden and Singapore in the year 2013. India's overall citation impact has become 0.75 during 2009-13 from 0.68 during 2006-10 (World average citation impact is 1.0).

It is necessary to strengthen and update the basic infrastructure in order to encourage the advancement of scientific research in the country. The Ministry of Science and Technology has taken a number of steps in this direction. These steps include setting up of new institutions for science education and research such as IITs and IISERs, creation of centres of excellence for research and facilities in emerging and frontline S&T areas in academic and national institutes, strengthening infrastructure for Research and Development (R&D) in universities.

During the last two years, under the ‘ Fund for Improvement of S&T Infrastructure in Universities and Higher Educational Institutions'(FIST ) programme, around 335 science/medical/engineering departments of universities/institutes and PG colleges have been recommended for support to the tune of Rs.560 crore. Under the ‘Promotion of University Research and Scientific Excellence (PURSE) programme, an amount of Rs.425 crore has been allocated to select 14 high performing universities. Under the ‘Sophisticated Analytical Instrumentation Facility (SAIF) ' programme, 15 SAIF's have been supported with grant worth Rs.30 crore.

This has resulted in overall increased publications, higher number of citations of the published papers, attracted more students to conduct quality research in these departments / PG colleges, increase in the number of extramural grants from different funding agencies across these departments / PG colleges etc.

Under Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Research (DPRP) Programme, facilities on combinatorial natural products, compliance of Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) pilot plant for traditional herbal medicinal formulation, drug discovery through new chemical entity, neurotoxicity research have been successfully established. In addition, 3 Common Research and Technology Development Hubs (CRTDHs) at CSIR-CCMB, Hyderabad and CSIR-IHBT, Palampur in area of affordable health care and at CSIR-NIIST, Thiruvananthapuram in the area of environmental interventions have been established. These CRTDHs facilitate productivity and competitiveness of small & medium scale industries by providing scientific and technological support, infrastructure, sophisticated analytical as well as advanced research equipment facility.

This was stated by the Minister of State for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Shri Y.S.Chowdary in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.

Source

Press Information Bureau , 05 May, 2016