Country needs to invest in research, says expert

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 16

The need of the hour is to strengthen the primary healthcare and to develop a system in this regard for the country.

This was stated by Prof Vinod K Paul, Member NITI Aayog, New Delhi, during the India-UK Industry-Academia Symposium which was inaugurated at the CIL Seminar Hall, Panjab University (PU), on Monday.

The event was organised by the Department of Science and Technology (DST)-Centre for Policy Research at the PU, Royal Academy of Engineering, UK, and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, New Delhi.

He discussed a few initiatives, such as the National Health Protection Scheme, which had been kick started in India for bringing about a change. Encouraging innovations, he pushed the need for indigenous manufacturing of biomedical devices so that the country did not need to import. He stated the country needed to invest highly in research.

Andrew Ayre, British Deputy High Commissioner, Chandigarh, acknowledged the efforts of the organisers and stressed on the fact that partnerships had the ability to solve societal issues globally.

Prof Sir William Wakeham, Royal Academy of Engineering, UK, emphasised on the fact that the industry personnel should take active part in teaching modules of the academia.

Arun K Grover, Vice-Chancellor, PU, talked about the need for reforms and introduced the participants to a ‘systems thinking’ approach towards the research and innovation policy and collaborative industry-academia (I-A) researchfunding mechanisms.

Virtual corridor

The highlight of the event was the launch of the ‘South-East to North-West  Virtual Corridor’ between Andhra Pradesh Medtech Zone Limited (AMTZ), Vishakapatnam, and the Chandigarh Region Innovation and Knowledge Cluster (CRIKC) for the manufacturing of medical devices.