siliconindia | | December 20168To Make in India indigenous technology is needed and it requires a lot of research and development. With the PMs Initiative, our technology requirements may not be fulfilled by foreign countries. Hence, to meet our requirements, research and development in this field is required. However there is a dearth of qualified researchers as not many people take research as a career. Higher education institutions where only people with PhDs are hired are facing difficulty in hiring qualified candidates. Often, due to this, Indians graduating from universities abroad are often recruited.This is because students today are not entering the research field. There are many factors contributing to this. Research requires a lot of sacrifice and it is not an easy field. Fresh graduates getting a well paid job would not want to go into research as a result. The number of growth paths in the research field is also limited as compared to a corporate world where someone can start from the bottom and rise to be the president of the company, provided he has the necessary skills. That kind of growth is not there in research. Students also have to take up jobs because they are driven by debt, by factors of money and lack of growth. The emphasis is going to change mainly because there is a mandate to produce more PhDs especially in the light of the requirements for the country and the Prime Ministers `Make in India' initiative. Research is about challenges and students today require more challenges. So opportunities need to be provided to create a challenging environment to encourage students to enter the field of research. Research requires a lot of good quality infrastructure. For this the number of quality higher education institutes, needs to increase and heavy investment will be required. All institutes depend on the companies and the government to fund research as they cannot survive without it. They cannot depend upon government funding completely as it is insufficient. Thus, funds from private companies are needed to take research to the logical conclusion. So ""Research requires higher degrees than a basic Bachelors degree as higher knowledge is required proceed forward in this fieldIn My OpinionResearch as a Career PathBy Prof. S. Gopalkrishnan, Chairman - Department Aerospace Engineering, IISc Bangalore
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