According to Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, Scientific Social Responsibility (SSR) is one of the three “mini policies” the government would bring in soon—these eventually might form part of the overarching policy for the development of science and technology, the ‘Science, Technology, Innovation Policy, 2020’, or STIP 2020.
- The other two mini policies are for geo-spatial data and sharing of scientific infrastructure.
- The idea behind Scientific Social Responsibility (SSR) is to get the benefit of science to society quicker.
- According Prof Sharma, the problem in India is not so much knowledge creation, as knowledge consumption. SSR will go a long way in remedying this situation.
- India has infrastructure resources, human resources and knowledge resources. They may be with scientists, scientific organizations or universities. The idea is to reach out to the society with these resources.
- Scientists could spend some time talking to farmers, MSMEs, start-up; institutions could bring school students into their labs to “fire up their imagination”. All these counts as SSR.
- The SSR may not be mandatory like the Corporate Social Responsibility where large companies have to spend 2 per cent of the average profit of the previous three years on specified CSR activities.
(Source: Business Line)
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