India produces approximately 1.88 million STEM graduates every year. This large prospective scientific workforce suffers from the absence of a streamlined process to access empirical work opportunities in the form of internships, volunteering, mentorship or entrepreneurship. Ritika Mukherji argues that by not tapping into this demographic dividend, the country’s academia and industry are losing out on a massive semi-skilled workforce.

Research experience during their undergraduate years can be a great way to motivate students and aid their future career development. However, most students seeking such experience run up against a major hindrance in the form of unresponsiveness of the researchers whom they approach with such requests. Divya writes about the harmful consequences of such attitudes and some possible ways in which this could be mitigated.

A personal take on how science faculty at The IIS University in Jaipur, balance teaching and research roles.

This is a request to teachers all over the country whose undergraduate or post graduate students write to us for their 6-month projects or 1-year dissertations. Like many faculty members, I get a dozen emails each week, typically a form letter that the student has carpet-bombed hundreds of scientists with. They often request (or, sometimes “requisition”) help with their careers (often, “carriers”) and state their desire to work in bioinformatics/ … More

There are a few successful individual initiatives in University-Institute interactions in the past, some of them sustained since the eighties. Even as there is scope for institutionalizing these efforts further by involving more such city colleges in the ambit, the reproducibility of this engaging interaction involving research institutes and colleges in other centers in the country, is not in any serious doubt. Rather, it is highly called for, since potential … More