Indian universities lag behind in scientific research: study

Findings of publishing house Elsevier presented at science meet

Published on:

10 Jan 2012, 12:18 pm

An analysis of research publications around the world has shown that while India is among the world’s top countries in terms of scientific research output, the country’s universities have fallen way behind in providing good scientific research papers. The results were revealed at the Indian Science Congress in Bhubaneswar last week.

The analysis by publishing house Elsevier, which brings out top science journals has shown that the proportion of scientific papers published from India has grown at a rate of 14.3 per cent annually in the past five years, catapulting it into the elite list of countries like the US, the UK and Japan.

Elsevier study findings

Scientific papers published from India has grown at a rate of 14.3 per cent annually in the past five years, catapulting it into the elite list of countries like the US, the UK and Japan
Most of the publicised research in India is emanating from research institutes as opposed to universities, which typically account for a country’s growth in research
Only one university—University of Hyderabad—features in the list of top institutes that contributed towards India’s research output in 2008 and 2009
India’s major contribution to the scientific world has been in the field of chemistry—38 per cent of the country’s papers in 2010 were on the subject
Contribution of computer science (4.8 per cent), health sciences (3.5 per cent) and medical specialities (4.3 per cent) towards India’s total research output was relatively low
India’s average citations per article (CPA) was 2.71 in the period between 2006 and 2010, while China registered a CPA of 2.21. While India’s CPA was far below US’s 6.45, which ranked first, the analysis found that India’s CPA has improved tremendously from 2.0 to 2.71 in the five years

India v China

Need to strengthen applied research

indian science congress