UGC should monitor research at the universities: HRD Minister

NEW DELHI: The Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister, Ramesh Pokhriyal has asked the University Grants Commission (UGC) to devise a mechanism through which research activities at the universities can be monitored. The HRD Minister said that a huge amount of money is being spent on research and in such a scenario there should be no repetition of the same research work which has been done earlier.

The HRD Minister while speaking at the launch of the five ‘Quality Mandates’ prepared by the UGC said that the UGC should ask universities to check what kind of research they are doing. “Who is taking ahead of the research which has been done so far, rather than doing repetitive work,” Pokhriyal said.

Pohkriyal speaking in the context of ongoing anti CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protests all over the country in various higher education institutions said that we have to look into why students are protesting. He said, “They should believe in us.”

The UGC launched five documents covering five verticals of the quality mandate. The five documents cover evaluation reforms, eco-friendly and sustainable university campuses, human values and professional ethics, faculty induction and academic research integrity.

Talking about the low ranking of Indian institutions in international rankings, Pokhriyal said: “When I look at international rankings I find that we are lagging behind only in the area of research and innovation. We need to work to improve it. We have two challenges, GER should improve and the second thing is two improve the ranking of our institutions and we will do it soon.”

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