Our science efforts need to have shared sense of purpose: Kovind

To become successful in the field of research and innovation, Indian scientists need to have a "shared sense of purpose" and bring their individual efforts into a concerted whole, President Ram Nath Kovind said on Monday.

Addressing the inaugural session of a gathering of Nobel laureates hosted at Rashtrapti Bhavan, he emphasised that individual efforts should move towards building teams of "highest quality".

"Three things are needed for success... our scientists, from Ph.D. students to senior technologists, must have a shared sense of purpose. They must address quality capacity building, participate in national missions, and take on frontier research.

"Fragmented, individual-driven approaches must move to building teams of the highest quality," Kovind said.

Secondly, he said, that universities and research institutes should come together to form research hubs and cited one such hub founded in Bengaluru.

Thirdly, the President enjoined the researchers to stay connected with the research community world over to be in the know of "latest advances".

"Science is nothing if not a global enterprise. It is this last point which is our focus today. How do we build world class institutions and universities and how do these connect to our society -- both within our national boundaries and beyond?" he added.

The seminar -- part of Nobel Prize Series -- was organised by the Department of Biotechnolgy in association with Nobel Foundation and was addressed by four Nobel Award winning scientists - German biologist Christiane Nusslein-Volhard is a German biologist, English biochemist and molecular biologist Richard John Roberts, French physicist Serge Haroche and Swedish-born British scientist Tomas Robert Lindahl, who won the award for research in cancer.

--IANS

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