Narayana Murthy says,”We need more women in Science”

Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy said that India needs more women participation in Science to improve the quality of research in the country. “Whenever I have gone for a convocation address in any university or IITs or lots of institutions in the country, I find the percentage of gold medals that are won by women is generally much higher than by men,”.  At the same time, a recent report released by the firm Clarivate Analytics shows that only 10 Indians figure among the world’s top 4,000 highly-cited researchers (HCR), with only one woman from India featuring in the list topped by the US. He also said that so we should create an environment that is favorable for women.

Murthy said that youngsters needed to spend more time with international researchers and they should participate in conferences outside India. “I think our aim for world-class work, aim for the best research work has to be improved first by being more open-minded to compare our work to what is happening outside India, second by providing greater chances for our youngsters to interact with world-class researchers and third by adopting a multidisciplinary research approach,” he said. “If we do some of these things I am sure we can improve the quality of research,” Murthy said.

There are some challenges faced by Research and Science in the country. Murthy noted that the research institutes should adopt a more multidisciplinary approach and provide for more interactions of researchers with those outside the country. He noted that funding may not really be the hurdle in improving the quality of research and that he was very hopeful and excited about the things to come in the field of research and science in the near future.