Policy to make researchers popularise science among students:

The national policy on scientific social responsibility will make it mandatory for researchers to popularise science among students, the head of the National Council for Science and Technology Communication Dr Akhilesh Gupta said on Sunday.

"We are bringing out a national policy on scientific social responsibility policy. It's a new idea. The policy is basically to give an opportunity where each scientist and each faculty who receive funds for their projects will have to undertake some social responsibility," he said.

Gupta was speaking at the Science Communicators' Meet at the 107th Indian Science Congress here.

As scientists are engaged in experiments and research, don't find time or rather are reluctant to go out and share their research story, this policy will make it mandatory for them to undertake some social responsibility, go to schools and colleges to tell their research stories, he said.

The policy has been drafted to encourage scientists to popularise science, he added.

Speaking about another initiative, he said the government of India also came up with a programme called Augmenting Writing Skills for Articulating Research (AWSAR).

In this programme, each student can take up writing articles and 100 top articles would be selected for awards.

These initiatives have been taken to promote science in the country where there is dearth of researchers.

"The number of researchers in India is the lowest, which is 215 per million whereas in China the number is about 1,500 per million," said Gupta.

He also said the department of science and technology wants to build a talent pool in the next five to eight years.