MEASURES TO BOOST BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH IN J&K

Kashmir valley has been an abode of knowledge and wisdom since times immemorial. Our doctors, engineers, technocrats and scientists have brought laurels and left an indelible impression worldwide by dint of their strong academic credentials and noteworthy achievements in their respective fields. Medical and healthcare scenario in Jammu and Kashmir is changing gradually and steadily. Even though considerable gains have been made over years in improving our healthcare sector, several new health issues are fast gaining momentum because of an increase in different types of ailments due to sedentary lifestyle, food adulteration, environmental pollution, agricultural contamination by use of chemicals fertilizers and pesticides, altered socio-cultural practices and food habits etc.

Though our healthcare indicators are fast improving, much more needs to be done to rejuvenate them as our healthcare needs are enormous and dynamic and a number of challenges exist as a result of the emergence of new diseases of contemporary times. There is need for reassessment of the bio-medical science and research sector of J&K followed by brainstorming deliberations on the challenges emerging out of the fast-changing scenario. In this very context, there is need to develop strategies for enhancing research and promoting research quality particularly in biomedical sciences within Jammu and Kashmir.  A goal-oriented and focused blue-print needs to be developed to achieve highest possible standards in research and keep pace with changing global trends. Top ten strategies for enhancing research in Jammu and Kashmir are listed as under:

1.      Funding for Research

One of the most important requirements for research is adequate funds. We need to explore possibilities of funding for our research at regional, national and international level through public institutions, private industries, NGOs as well as through opportunities for public-private partnership. National level funding agencies like ICMR, DBT, DST, UGC, ICAR, MHRD, SERB in addition to funding opportunities from the industry, academia and NGOs need to be tapped to their fullest. However in certain cases funding from national public and private agencies might not suffice, in which case international funding agencies like WHO, WTO, World Bank, UNITAID, UNO etc need to be approached for grants.

2.      Infrastructure for Research

We need to develop our research infrastructure for enhancing our research and improving our research quality drastically. This can be made possible by identifying and establishing research institutes and research centres within those institutes that are capable of undertaking high quality research. Besides adequate, trained manpower, these centres need to be fully equipped with sophisticated instruments required to undertake high-end research, databases that are required to undertake systematic literature reviews, meta-analyses etc, access to medical literature through Scopus, Sciencedirect, Pubmed, Medline etc.

3.      Manpower for Research

Apart from money it is the manpower that makes a mere go. Adequate, qualified, trained, well-oriented and duly specialized manpower is needed in sufficient numbers to run the research centres and carry out research in identified thrust areas. For developing such manpower courses related to research methodology need to be incorporated into the UG and PG curriculum at college as well as university level so as to develop a research culture and harness a research temperament among our students and scholars. Even at school level curriculum should be inquisitive enough to promote creativity and innovative thinking among ours students who in later course of their life could emerge as ace researchers. Specialized training needs to be imparted to the selected manpower on need-basis depending upon the prioritized thrust areas of research identified by the experts.

4.      Policies for Research

We need comprehensive, goal-oriented and focused research policies at institutional level, regional/state level as well as national level for enhancing research and promoting research quality in tune with fast changing global trends. Such policies should be contextual and need-based and address the most intriguing problems faced by our society. As envisaged in the National Education Policy, 2019 we need to develop research universities and autonomous colleges for carrying our intensive research on thrust areas identified by the experts. Such policies should be evidence-based and practiced and implemented in a time-bound manner.

5.      Incentives for Research

While good research needs to be encouraged through appropriate incentivization, making its use in appointments and promotions of teachers is debatable since introduction of API (Academic Performance Indicators) based assessment of teachers by the University Grants Commission in 2010 has come under severe criticism since it led to mechanization of research output and led teachers towards a rat race of accumulating API points in pursuance to their promotions. Quality of research must receive priority over quantity of research under all circumstances and journal metrics like impact factor that is actually used to assess the quality of a journal is being criticized by many Nobel Laureates like for its use in the assessment of teachers and their quality of research. Research must be evaluated by the peers and experts in the field rather than by journal metrics like impact factor and citation index. Further it needs to be debated whether research output should be used for providing financial incentives to teachers, awarding fellowships and giving recognition to them in their academics or it must be reserved only for the quality of new knowledge added to the existing body of literature.

6.      Collaborative Research

In epistemological terms, the concept of inter-disciplinarity may be regarded as a form of cooperation between various disciplines, which contribute to the achievement of a common end and which, through their association, further the emergence and advancement of new knowledge. Based on the degree of integration of disciplines in research, it is considered that the quality of inter-disciplinarity depends on the degree of influence exerted by the respective disciplines in the cooperative process. If one discipline is dominant, quality is poor. If the influence is balanced, quality is high. For instance trans-disciplinarity is a state of complete balance of influence between all relevant participating disciplines at the highest possible level of co-ordination.

Depending upon the balance of influence between different participating disciplines, collaborative interdisciplinary research can be further classified into cross-disciplinary, pluri-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research. Multi-disciplinarity is considered to be the least developed form of interdisciplinarity. Collaborative research needs to take into account these different levels of interdisciplinary involvement and collaboration between different participating disciplines for the sake of clear definition of their respective roles. However it goes without saying that carrying out interdisciplinary research is the need of the hour since knowledge cannot be compartmentalized and confined to disciplines. All such boundaries need to be dissolved and knowledge needs to be liberated from all such confines and made freely available to all those who seek it.

7.      Contextual, Need-based Research

Addressing needs of the society through contextual research is the need of the hour. In developed nations, universities organize research fairs and establish research shops that allow community members to visit them and register their research problems based on which research projects are prepared and research undertaken to find solutions to their actual problems. Similarly timely and regular communication of research output to the masses is equally important for greater transparency of our research activities. Research institutions must consider these best practices apart from establishing entrepreneurship and innovation cells within their research centres so as to harness the spirit of entrepreneurship through research.

8.      Translational Research

Merely carrying out research is of no use unless the evidence generated out of scientific inquiry is translated into policy and the policy is practiced and implemented to resolve day-to-day issues on the ground. It is generally observed that the evidence generated through our research hardly translates into policy and whatever little translates into policy is hardly implemented in actual practice which makes the whole exercise fruitless and results into confining of research dissertations onto the shelves of our libraries. There is need for greater coordination between researchers and policy-makers for incorporating research findings and recommendations into our administrative policies. Researchers need to be made part and parcel of policy-making for better productivity, effectiveness and robustness of the government policies.

9.      Integrity in Research

Maintaining integrity in research is of paramount importance and therefore young researchers need to be imparted adequate education about related issues like plagiarism, duplication, gift and ghost authorship, salami publications, outsourced publishing etc at an appropriate level of their training. It is hard to achieve quality in research unless awareness about the importance of integrity, transparency and accountability is promoted and incorporated as an inherent component of the research. Problem of predatory journals that has alarmingly surfaced over the past few years needs to be countered and controlled in its right earnest. Any cases of malpractices in research need to be dealt with severely to set an effective deterrent.

10.  Ethics in Research

Just like integrity, ethics in research is a high priority area for maintaining quality and high standards in research. Prime importance needs to be accorded to the issues like confidentiality, privacy, non-malfeasance, beneficence, autonomy and justice without which no credible and substantive research is ever possible. Awareness about these components needs to be created from the very beginning of research and Institutional Ethics Committees need to be vigilant, proactive about any such malpractices in research and therefore be strict in ensuring full compliance with ethics in research. Unless integrity and ethics are maintained in research, no substantial gains can be made in achieving high standards of quality in research.