About 146 researchers were presented with medals at the Research Day held at SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRMIST), Kattankulathur. Chief Guest of the event Dr. Nandini Kannan, Executive Director, Indo-US Science and Technology Forum honoured the researchers and released the CD of abstract on the occasion.
Present on the occasion were SRMIST’s Vice Chancellor Dr. C. Muthamizhchelvan, Pro VC (Medical) Dr. Lt. Col A. Ravikumar, Registrar Dr. S. Ponnusamy, COE Dr. K. Gunasekaran, other Directors and Deans.
Among those honoured was Dr. Satyajit Mohapatra from SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre (SRM MCH&RC) who brought in funding of 1.6 crores. Dr. Satyajit was also the Principle Investigator of the COVAXIN trial held at SRM MCH&RC. The hospital has recently opened a 5000 square feet hi-tech research faculty called the ‘SRM Centre for Clinical trials & Research’.
In her speech, Dr. Nandini Kannan said, “Science and technology should be used to bridge the gap in the society, including climate change.” She encouraged students to take up international collaborations. "Global challenges call for global collaborations and partnerships, bringing together the best and brightest scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to work together.”
She elaborated that such collaboration will provide access to unique perspectives and approaches, leverage the limited resources and infrastructure, share insights and knowledge, and finally allow one to create new networks and a globally-engaged workforce.
She said that the new National Education Policy encourages international students to study in India, it also provides greater mobility to Indian students to visit, study at, transfer credits to, or conduct research at institutions abroad. “It also facilitates research/teaching collaborations and faculty/student exchanges with top international institutions, it also encourages high performing Indian universities to set up campuses in other countries.”
Highlighting the challenges and opportunities in higher education, she said, “Universities should move towards a technology-driven, outcome-based model, incorporating new Pedagogy through flipped classroom, MOOCs, Online Assessment, hands-on instruction, Just in Time Teaching, team-taught courses to foster inter-disciplinarily, research in undergraduate programs and so on.”
She added that the main challenge that universities face is preparing the global workforce of tomorrow. “Automation/emerging technologies are radically changing the workplace. Therefore academic institutions need to be nimble, flexible, and adapt to keep pace with these new technologies.” She concluded by saying that students and faculty should never stop doing research.
Vice Chancellor Dr. C. Muthamizhchelvan in his presidential address said, “At SRMIST, Research Day was done to promote interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary learning among research scholars.” Presenting the research statistics he said that at SRMIST a lot of collaborative research is encouraged among faculty. He also urged students to submit quality papers.
“SRMIST has a huge infrastructure and labs and these need to be used efficiently. We have several centres of excellence. This year we opened two such centres one for energy and the other for the environment.”
