Returning to India for a scientific career: A survey report

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA;

Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB1 2EW, UK

E-mail: sarkar@wi.mit.edu

Young Investigator Meeting in Boston (YIM Boston) has been instrumental in showcasing the growing opportunities and achievements in Indian science to motivate talented young scientists to return back to the country. It brings the leaders of Indian scientific institutions and governmental funding agencies together with Indian post-doctoral scientists and junior faculties working abroad under one roof to foster networking and interactions for recruitment in the Indian system, as well as to create awareness about the current platform of Indian science. A survey titled “returning to India for a scientific career” was conducted at YIM Boston held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in October 2011. The survey collected 127 responses from those participating in this event as well as other young scientists at the post-doctoral level.Itreflects the collective opinion of young Indian scientists who are thinking of shifting base to India to take up a faculty position. The aim of this exercise is to assess the views and needs of these candidates in order to attract a critical mass of internationally competent individuals in the rapidly growing scientific community in India.

The first question “why should you be in India to take part in the ‘change’ or to make the ‘change’ in the scientific scenario” received the highest vote with 87% for the choice ‘to help strengthen the scientific community of India at the international forum’. This appears encouraging and may be possible bygiving attractive opportunities to the world experts in diverse fields of research or to those promising candidates who are likely to become one for creating a constellation of centers with international recognition. Two other choices, ‘increasing research and job opportunities in India’ and ‘serving the needs of the country with your expertise’ received 73% and 64% votes, respectively. This suggests that despite the massive growth in research jobs and infrastructure, which is indeed attractive for many, majority of these candidates are also keen to serve their homeland in further strengthening the science and technology of the nation. However, the option ‘India is the place where your research will be best executed’ received only 13% votes. Keeping in mind the optimistic opinions portrayed above, the positives that can be taken from this point may be that these candidates are ready to take up the challenge in establishing world class research niches in India where well justified science funding is possibly available at a large scale.

The second question asked “if you are an internationally competitive faculty applicant, what are the primary positive factors that will influence your decision to take up a job in India”. Apart from citing ‘family and personal reasons’ (65% votes), majority of the participants voted for ‘availability of substantial research grants’ (70% votes), along with ‘freedom of thought and research’ (56%), ‘recent development or expansion of new or existing institutes’ (49% votes) and ‘research environment and infrastructure’ (49% votes). These positive reasoning possibly stem from the enormous increase in science funding and developments enforced by the Indian government and its funding agencies at a time when money in science is drying up in the Western world due to financial crisis. Indeed, a lot of job opportunities have been created by the establishment of five Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs)across the country and a new Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Gandhinagar, amongst others, as

well as the expansion of several existing institutes within their campus, or in a new location like the proposed Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) at Hyderabad and a new extension of the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB) campus in Kolkata.Furthermore, creation of a cluster of institutes, such as the newly formed Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) and Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem) within the renowned National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) campus in Bangalore aim to harbour a variety of expertise and facilities with open access for each other. Towards this, another major positive factor include ‘collaborative initiatives’ receiving 47% votes, highlighting the increase in crosstalk amongst scientists across India, as well as inter-disciplinary science and international collaborations. Despite losing a lot of the best brains to the West, the ‘quality of students’ within India received 40% votes, indicating that a lot of the participants believe there is not a lack of talented students willing to start their research career in India. Moreover, ‘recipient of a prestigious fellowship’ (29% votes), such as the Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance, Ramanujan or Ramalingaswamy Fellowships, appears to be an encouraging factor for some. Additionally, ‘permission of holding dual faculty positions’ (21% votes) to outstanding candidates may increase the visibility of Indian science at a global stage. Finally, ‘ability to translate your science from bench to bedside’ (26% votes) may reflect the growing awareness of translational science and technology development in India, such as the development of Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) near New Delhi, and the new technology institute C-CAMP within the NCBS campus at Bangalore. Interestingly, almost all the participants are confident of getting recruited as a faculty outside India as ‘unable to secure a job or get tenure in the West’ received only 6% votes. This emphasizes the fact that recruitment of internationally competent candidates would lead to a faster progression of Indian science as a global superpower.

The third question asked “if you are an internationally competitive faculty applicant, what are the primary negative factors that will influence your decision not to take up a job in India”. The majority believes that the ‘amount of salary’ (56% votes) is inadequate for relocating in India with the rising living costs and real estate prices in major metropolitan cities. This issue needs to be addressed not only for faculties but also for graduate students and post-docs. Another major concern was ‘research environment and infrastructure’ receiving 55% votes, which interestingly, also received 49% votes in the previous question for positive factors. This mixed opinions suggest that those voting positively are content of what is in place, while the ones voting negatively are either unaware of the latest developments or they feel that this context is not yet applicable to institutes in various corners of the country apart from only the top-tier institutes. ‘Ease of acquiring reagents’ (46% votes) has been a major concern not only for the participants of this survey but also to some of those who have accepted this fact and have taken up a job in India. Creation of centralized reagent facility within institutes, which is already in place for some, along with the establishment of national facilities for transgenic animals as well as chemical and gene libraries, may act as catalysts in speeding up bioscience research to compete better internationally. These developments should be in sync with hiring a number of technical experts as heads of the respective facilities. Likewise,‘availability of post-doctoral researchers’ (37% votes), which has remained a constant concern, has been highlighted as a major negative factor. While it is beneficial in many ways to acquire some degree of research experience in USA or Europe, creating a lot of attractive fellowship schemes as well as international collaborative post-doc programs may help to generate a critical mass of post-docs for research laboratories across India. Few other areas of minor concerns were ‘freedom of thought and research’ (32% votes), ‘collaborative initiatives’ (23% votes) and ‘permission of holding dual faculty positions’ (14% votes), which may suggest that scientists should be given more flexibility in the mode of conducting research to foster young talented individuals with the ultimate goal of benefiting Indian science. ‘Other most compelling reasons’ (15% votes) as negative factors was largely suggested to be ‘bureaucracy’ and ‘hierarchical dominance’.

In a nutshell, science in India is on the rise and opportunities are manifold. This has naturally created a ‘reverse brain drain’ with increasing competitiveness in finding the best suitable job in India. This era may not last for long so there is a gold rush to secure a faculty position in an Indian research institute. One concept arising is that of applying as a team of scientists having distinct expertise with the aim of solving intricate or fundamental research questions involving a number of expertise or disciplines. However, it is critically important to return as a faculty in India only when a candidate is internationally reputed or competitive, which would play a major role in strengthening the Indian scientific community at the international forum. This may echo the fact that ‘science has no age’, and thus, a highly qualified individual with commendable achievements at a junior or senior position should be considered an attractive candidate at the respective level as long as it is beneficial for Indian science.

Acknowledgements: Survey Monkey; Participants of the survey; YIM Boston