‘A research culture is needed to motivate faculty, students’

The University has taken measures to improve research in all its departments and affiliated colleges. We have created a facility of 6,500 research journals online and given individual IDs to all research scholars. Grants for minor research projects have been doubled.

The University has taken measures to improve research in all its departments and affiliated colleges. We have created a facility of 6,500 research journals online and given individual IDs to all research scholars. Grants for minor research projects have been doubled.

Why are the university’s earnings from research so low?

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More needs to be done in this direction. We have initiated an industry-academic linkage group to encourage research. We are encouraging formal consultancy among all our research scholars and faculty.

What are the hurdles in research faced by the University?

We need to establish the linkages with industries and form research collaborations with national and international research institutes. No doubt, some departments are doing good work. Most importantly, a research culture is needed in all departments to motivate faculty and students.

The Kalina campus has a capacity to enroll 16,000 students but has only 9,000. What is the university doing to encourage more students to join?

This is a cause of concern. All departments where the admitted strength is below 50 % intake capacity have been asked to initiate measures to enroll more students. Departments need to assess their own performance and teachers need to be proactive in maintaining the academic standards to attract more students. We have asked heads of departments to submit a vision statement and accordingly prepare their budget.

The total allocated budget for UPE is Rs21.14 crore. All the centres under UPE are expected to function as per the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines. Some of these are doing well. The Centre for Computational Social Sciences has made a lot of progress. The UPE office, too, has been set up. Appointments of project-fellows are being done as per UGC rules. About 15 project fellows are working on various projects at present. The posts in green technology have also been advertised. The building for a green technology centre has been approved and construction will begin after the monsoon and will be completed in a year.