On Feb 21st, ClubSciWri organised an open interview with Prof K. VijayRaghavan, Secretary of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), in the twitter townhall #AskVijayDBT. There was an overwhelming response (>30 active participants in 7 countries) to our call for discussions with him and we have tried to collect the energetic exchange of ideas and publish the entire discussion. The flow of the tweetchat was quick and compact due to the time constraints, large number of participants and overlap of tweets. Yet, we have tried to rearrange them in the best possible order of the discussion. The sheer turnout at the event and the variety of questions asked was not only heartening but also demonstrated the very evidence of ‘fire in the belly‘ which Vijay repeatedly asks of, of everyone as part of a young and dynamic Indian research sector.
The general plan of the twitter chat was to initiate discussions with DBT, regarding initiatives to support entrepreneurship in biotech, industrial opportunities for trained biologists and understanding the existing science policies. Our aim was also to provide a direct platform to pose questions to the policy makers of the Indian biotechnology sector – an enthusiastic VijayRaghavan, assisted by Shailja Gupta (Director, International Co-operation, DBT).
Nurture Entrepreneurship
In wake of ‘MakeInIndia Biotechnology‘, it was natural for queries regarding the expected outcomes of this initiative, to rise. While lauding the surge in Indian entrepreneurship, Vijay acknowledged that scaling up remains an issue due to many reasons (regulations, taxations, etc.) which needs to be worked upon and that the Government of India (GoI) was ‘proactive’ about it.
@ClubSciWri Removing roadblocks: Regulation, taxation , ease of doing business. GoI proactive. #AskVijayDBT
— K. VijayRaghavan (@kvijayraghavan) February 21, 2016
Predicting a three times growth in biotechnology sector in the near future, Vijay mentioned the need to bring about regulation, ease in business and training high quality personnel apart from utilising the MakeInIndia programme to facilitate in-house production of biotech products rather than importing them. If the newly launched National Biotechnology Development Strategy goes to plan, we can expect fulfillment of these predictions.
@ClubSciWri #AskVijayDBT 3/n10X if we show some social entrepreneurship fire in belly.
— K. VijayRaghavan (@kvijayraghavan) February 21, 2016
@ClubSciWri 15X if we #MakeInIndia many we import, partner to export
— K. VijayRaghavan (@kvijayraghavan) February 21, 2016
Research Support for the proliferating lifescience research community
A large number of questions revolved around fellowships and mentoring. Participants wished to know if programmes to nurture young researchers, on the lines of Young Investigator Program (YIP) as in NCBS are being considered in other institutes funded by DBT, to which the Secretary to DBT responded saying that it is idea to be given more thought.
@ClubSciWri #AskVijayDBT Somene asked if there will be YIP as a central program. Lets think this through. With institutional buy-in may be.
— K. VijayRaghavan (@kvijayraghavan) February 21, 2016
@asharmaiisc @DBTIndia 2/2 , we have other fellowship Ramalingaswami and Ramanujan. These will be scaled and improved.
— K. VijayRaghavan (@kvijayraghavan) February 21, 2016
Vijay also mentioned grant writing assistance provided by DBT and urged all researchers to watch out for related opportunities at IndiaBioScience. The recent (Feb, 2016) induction of India as a member state into the EMBC and EMBO, makes larger number of fellowships to be accessible by young Indian researchers.
@himdaughter @ClubSciWri @DBTIndia Do all see @IndiaBioScience site. many points especially on fellowships and academia there
— K. VijayRaghavan (@kvijayraghavan) February 21, 2016
@ClubSciWri #AskVijayDBT The EMBO Alliance gets best training prgms here. Best in world here. Can develop Indian Postdoc culture.Lets do it
— K. VijayRaghavan (@kvijayraghavan) February 21, 2016
An intelligent exchange of dialogues leads to new ideas and indeed, the suggestions provided by our twitterati did lead the Secretary to DBT’s to ponder on some and promise action on the others.
- Welcoming the integration of STEM PhDs in deciding science policies
- Considering Young Investigator Program (YIP) like initiatives to be undertaken at institutes other than NCBS
- In the present scenario most Indian post-docs overseas very much wish to come back to India with a PI position. Vijay has acknowledged the need for relaxing the age limit for PI applicants and for more gender equality in the research sector, which is a welcoming future direction for Indian science (women participants formed ~26% of this twitterchat).
@santoshkmisra #AskVijayDBT @ClubSciWri My personal view is that this should be reviewed, make it flexible,judge quality, gets more women in
— K. VijayRaghavan (@kvijayraghavan) February 21, 2016
- Provision of a platform to ease collaborations between Indian and international scientists, esp the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) researchers was suggested and is hopefully underway. If realised, this would be a major boost to in-house biotech knowledge, while NRI scientists can also maintain a home base and tap the wealth of well-trained human resource.
@ClubSciWri @kvijayraghavan @DBTIndia are there portals where NRI Scientists could seek potential collaborations in India #AskVijayDBT
— Suhail Ahmed Kabeer (@kabeer_suhail) February 21, 2016
@himdaughter @kabeer_suhail @ClubSciWri @DBTIndia (GoI) must make easy 4 Indian Diaspor+ Int Partners to collaborate. Doing,more will be dn
— K. VijayRaghavan (@kvijayraghavan) February 21, 2016
Along with assurances of GoI’s actions for boosting the research scenario in the country, there were also words of encouragement and caution for home-bound NRI researchers.
@ClubSciWri #AskVijayDBT We are tough place to work.we will change that. We are a poor country. You can change that. Science can help.
— K. VijayRaghavan (@kvijayraghavan) February 21, 2016
@ClubSciWri #AskVijayDBT Science in India is a growing adventure. Don’t be deterred by problems. Old ones will go and new will come:-) But..
— K. VijayRaghavan (@kvijayraghavan) February 21, 2016
@ClubSciWri #AskVijayDBT But.. you change yourself, your institution & the next gen here .And you can change India and the world. Go for it
— K. VijayRaghavan (@kvijayraghavan) February 21, 2016
Science policy
An interesting discussion ensued regarding the GoI’s effort to increase investments in research training to match international levels. We can sympathise with the DBT about lower allocation of funds as compared to other departments like DAE (atomic energy) and DRDO (defence), as evident from the figures sourced from the yearly Indian budget (Ref: Nature News) (See graph below).
There is some consolation regarding the 12% increase in funding as compared to the previous year, yet the money is half of what was estimated for the establishment of a genomics hub in India. Yet, the spirits of the Secretary to DBT remain indomitable and in his opinion, we need to be well-equipped with good plans prior to the availability of funds.
@ritankarm @kvijayraghavan @ClubSciWri Well you have to really break that up almost most of it goes to space research 🙂 🙂
— Shailja Vaidya Gupta (@himdaughter) February 21, 2016
@himdaughter @ritankarm @ClubSciWri Money will come. Should be ready with quality ideas:Individual,Institutuons,Missions.Aheadofmoney 🙂
— K. VijayRaghavan (@kvijayraghavan) February 21, 2016
Finally, one can safely conclude the enthusiasm of the participants was matched by Vijay’s optimism. Vijay and Shailija have also resolved to gather questions from this exchange and issue a formal response. We look forward to hearing more about the additional questions from the twitterchat.
@kvijayraghavan @ClubSciWri yes we should get all questions collected; and @DBTIndia should put up collective, comprehensive response
— Shailja Vaidya Gupta (@himdaughter) February 21, 2016
Fire in the belly
After the tweetchat the young scientific community went back with an inspiring take home message from Vijay and with an assurance that the Indian science is headed in the right direction. Vijay has also received suggestions for building a ground work for the improved future of Indian bioscience and he went back with a firm understanding that quite a bit of ground has to be covered to make this worthy dream a reality.
We at ClubSciWri are elated that researchers participating from half way around the world could instantaneously ask questions and provide suggestions to a science policy maker in a prominent funding body of India, who has also devoted the time and had the courage to answer those queries. This set-up took a bit of our time but we think it was worthwhile, as also evident from the participants’ feedback. Nonetheless, hosting our first tweetchat has been a great experience but we hope to notch up our performance in the next coming chats.
Written and compiled by Kartika Shetty
This work by ClubSciWri is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
