Research in Indian Universities

Prof Yashpal, a renowned academician, had once remarked that university is a place where ideas germinate and grow. He was of the opinion that research should be the mainstay of the operational philosophy of a university through which knowledge creation takes place. A university’s role is to produce responsible, knowledgeable and productive citizens by providing good education. It should be able to activate humanistic, ethical, aesthetic and spiritual sensibilities of the students instead of looking at everything from a materialistic angle. Unfortunately, in India, making students economically productive has become the primary goal of universities. That is in sharp contrast to the system of education that was prevalent in ancient India through gurukuls, temple schools and agraharas as well as universities like Takshashila and Nalanda. Emphasis on techno-science and economics, basically to reap material benefits, have adversely affected the fundamentals of education being provided and have had a cascading effect on the quality of research being carried out in Indian universities. Thus, it is not uncommon to come across a refrain that the standard of research in Indian higher education institutions leaves much to be desired.

UGC, the apex body entrusted with ensuring quality of education in Indian universities, has instituted a number of measures to improve the quality of research and teaching-learning. However, while doing so, a fact that a good teacher may not always be a good researcher and vice versa has been ignored. Agreeably, there are some members of faculty who apart from being good researchers are also excellent teachers. But their numbers are not adequate to meet the demand of teachers required in higher education institutions. Unfortunately, policies of the UGC are based on a premise that a faculty-member should be both a good teacher and researcher. Acquiring a PhD degree has been incorporated in HR policies promulgated by the UGC. A PhD degree has been made mandatory for recruitment and promotions of faculty. Consequently, there has been a surfeit of PhDs being awarded by universities just to meet the requirements laid down by the UGC. One may term these as ‘sympathy PhDs’ basically to protect the interests of faculty members. The managements of the universities, under pressure to show number of PhD-holders on their faculty-rolls, have been more than willing to play along. Further, the UGC has made passing the National Eligibility Test (NET) a mandatory requirement for a person to be enrolled as a research scholar. The NET, a test to assess the suitability of candidates to teach, mainly assesses the teaching-ability of a candidate based on parameters such as memory, comprehension and, to a limited extent, application of knowledge. The aptitude and inclination of a candidate to engage in research in not assessed at all. Consequently, not all the candidates selected through NET possess the right qualities desired in a research scholar.

There have been instances where universities have adopted unethical practices of awarding PhD degrees for a fee to boost their revenues. There have also been instances where PhDs have been awarded to HR personnel from the corporate world as a quid pro quo to promote job-placements of students. Such practices are mainly prevalent in private universities and bring a bad name to private education providers. It is no secret that better job-placements foster admissions and boost revenues. Such practices do not augur well for the future of Indian higher education system. Moreover, having forsaken probity in their own functioning, such universities have lost the moral ground to inculcate ethics, honesty and integrity among their students, thereby, adversely affecting the quality of future generations of citizens.

The criteria adopted by various agencies, both at national and international levels, engaged in rating, accreditation and ranking of universities have also contributed to the quality of research in universities. The dominant criteria adopted by the international agencies to assess the quality of research in a university are papers published by its faculty in reputable journals and the number of citations. Contribution to the industry through application-oriented research and patents awarded are some of the other criteria, albeit to a limited extent. NAAC, the Indian accreditation body and NIRF the Indian ranking agency have adopted the same system. It is true that publication of papers is an important way for researchers to communicate with their peers. However, application-oriented research should be a dominant criterion for a developing country like India. Universities should be assessed based on their impact on the quality of life at local, regional and national levels and economies. Moreover, NAAC and NIRF have not taken into account the ingenuity of universities to beat the system. The race to publish has ushered in unethical practices such as plagiarism, image manipulation, paid publishing, salami-slicing (where different aspects of a major topic are published separately to increase the number of publications by the author) and ghost-writing among research scholars in Indian universities. Plagiarised papers are being published just by paraphrasing the language from the original paper. This practice, in a way, helps to circumvent scrutiny by plagiarism software. In fact, publishing fake papers has become a flourishing industry and sadly, in many cases, has institutional backing.

Many authors of papers resort to cartelisation-process wherein names of their peers are added as co-authors just to benefit their colleagues and the institutions. The favour so granted is, thereafter, returned when the beneficiary publishes a paper. This malaise is prevalent in both public and private universities. In many cases, senior faculty-members are known to pressurise their juniors to insert their names as co-authors. The cartelisation is further carried forward to citations for mutual benefit. A more worrying concern is that these malpractices are increasingly being institutionalised. These are afflicting both the public and private higher education institutions. There have been instances where universities, to boost their ratings and rankings, have conspired not only to promote fake publications, but to also ‘arrange’ for citations of the papers published by their respective faculty members. The managements of universities should realise that the resources expended on such activities could be better utilised as research grants and training of researchers. Clearly, there is a crying need for probity in operational philosophies of universities who engage in research just for sake of research and to boost their ratings and rankings.

A research-watchdog named India Research Watchdog (IRW) comprising scientists, researchers, students and data analysts has been formed to investigate research misconduct. IRW has more than 100 members and more academicians are joining to help this venture. Based on anonymous complaints IRW goes through published papers and shares information on Discord – an instant messaging and VoIP platform. Further, IRW has a public portal, where anyone can act as a whistleblower and expose papers that may have been published by unethical means. India possesses the third largest  pool of science and technology manpower. The country is ranked 9^th  globally as far as research publications are concerned. However, it is a matter of concern that the number of retractions of papers published by Indian authors rose 2.5 times between the period 2020-22 as compared to the period 2017-19 (Mohana Basu; The Wire; 22 January, 2024). Such incidents further tarnish the image of Indian higher education system that, as it is, is not held in very high esteem among the international academic fraternity. A stage has now been reached where naming and shaming delinquent researchers and institutions publicly should be taken up internally by academia. Regulatory bodies like the UGC, accreditation agencies like NAAC and ranking agencies like NIRF need to play their part to curb malpractices in Indian universities.

Indian universities need to pay more attention to nurturing their researchers. A good researcher should have passion to engage in research, should be curious, inquisitive, critical thinker, self-reliant, have the capability to persevere and possess an attitude to collaborate, communicate and organisation skills. Most importantly, a researcher should abide by ethical conduct. Unfortunately, the tendency to mass-produce successful research scholars has transcended the requirement to train researchers. Right from their school level the students are not introduced to the habit of reading, leave aside critical reading. Thus, they lack analytical abilities and the capacity to think critically. A vast majority of them do not have any paper-publication to their credit before they apply for enrollment as research scholars. It would not be an over-statement to say that many research scholars, when they embark on their journey to carry out research, are unable to distinguish between a paper and a thesis. Thus, majority of the theses produced in Indian universities are merely collations of statements of facts rather than documents that carry scholarly discussions and contribute to existing knowledge. In fact, many theses are submitted and evaluated sans their respective hypotheses.

Improving the quality of research in Indian universities demands certain key steps. The first and foremost is to nurture young researchers by inculcating in them the right qualities. They need to read critically, be inquisitive, engage in meaningful discussions and communicate effectively. Universities need to create a research culture in their campuses. Collaboration, at individual, department and institution levels and innovation should form the mainstay of all research activities. Funds should be made available for exploration and experimentation. Promoting inter-institution and international partnerships should be encouraged to improve the quality of research. Merit-based appointments should be made to ensure that only qualified researchers lead the projects. Investing in state-of-the-art infrastructure and technology could go a long way in improving the quality of research. Research should be based on the needs of the local and regional communities and industry to encourage involvement of all stakeholders. Together, these measures can elevate Indian universities as hubs of cutting-edge research and knowledge creation.