Bengaluru: Science is the answer to all the problems that plague our country today, said Vice-President Hamid Ansari, during his keynote address at the closing ceremony of the Silver Jubilee celebrations of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, in the city on Monday.

“If our aspiration of becoming a leading global force in science is to be attained, a massive increase in science and technology education will be necessary both in quality and quantity,” he said.

“This is essential to fulfill our domestic demand of S&T resources and to emerge as a quality supplier of scientific knowledge for the rest of the world.”

The percentage of the GDP allocated to scientific research has stagnated at 1% for over two decades, he said. "Asian countries, like China and South Korea, have left us behind in R&D expenditure. We need to increase the overall expenditure to atleast 2% by 2017, as envisaged in the 12th Five Year Plan.”

Students, he explained, show a great deal of interest in science until they finish high school. When it comes to choosing a career, however, science ranks below other streams, mainly because it appears to offer fewer opportunities.

“Consequently, there is a shortage of required human resources in higher education in sciences, including advanced research.”

India’s strength in basic science, he said, has contributed hugely to technologies being developed across the world.

This is because students with a science background choose to pursue their careers abroad, where prospects appear better.

“The widespread perception that basic science is not relevant for technology has to be dispelled. Citation impact rose from about half to three quarters of the world output during the decade.

While our contribution of highly cited papers has improved as a percentage of total output, it has remained stubbornly low. In 2011, we achieved only half of the 1% expected.”

Inventiveness in basic science is also low, with India’s ranking hovering between 50 and 60 among nations. “We must work toward increasing our ownership of intellectual assets, through higher levels of patenting,” Mr Ansari explained.

Scientific research should be presented as an attractive career option to our youth as well. “We must create an environment which encourages free thinking research and innovation in all spheres of science.”

It must be borne in mind, however, that a mere increase in the number of PhDs or scientific institutions is not enough. To make progress, he said, “We must ensure that some of our educational institutions, existing and new, should be ranked amongst the top 50 in the world.”