A week-long training under ‘Synergistic Training programme Utilizing the Scientific and Technological Infrastructure’ (STUSTI) started at the University of Kashmir on Monday.
The STUSTI scheme of Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, is intended to build human resource and its knowledge capacity through open access S&T Infrastructure.
Mr Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Advisor to Honourable LG, was Chief Guest at the inaugural session, while former KU Vice-Chancellor Prof Talat Ahmad presided over the function and Vice-Chancellor KU Prof Nilofar Khan was the special guest. Dean Academics KU Prof Farooq Masoodi and Registrar Dr Nisar Ahmad Mir were also present on the occasion, besides a galaxy of academics, researchers and students.
Addressing the participants, Mr R R Bhatnagar called for greater collaboration between institutions for sharing and integration of knowledge, ideas and information to provide better impetus to research endeavours across the J&K UT.
Calling for challenging the frontiers of science and scientific problems by young students, Mr Bhatnagar said our country is now an aspirational nation and the Government of India as well as the Government of J&K are providing their all-out support to help realise their aspirations.
He said the National Education Policy-2020 addresses many drawbacks and shortcomings that we previously had in our education system by focussing more on emerging areas like innovations and technological advancement to enable people to think big.
Mr Bhatnagar complimented the University of Kashmir for its "Brain-Gain" programme whereby the varsity is encouraging top scientist fellows to work in the University.
Former Vice-Chancellor Prof Talat Ahmad, who presided over the inaugural session, called for better usage of sophisticated scientific equipment across institutions for better data generation, as envisaged in the STUSTI scheme which shall train 10,000 students and researchers in optimal use of scientific equipment in instititions across the country.
In her special address, Prof Nilofar Khan said the NEP-2020 gives special weightage to research at undergraduate level which calls upon academic institutions to actively collaborate in research endeavours and find better solutions to problems being taken up by young research scholars.
"The need of the hour is to create a robust research environment to motivate young students towards scientific inquiry and find practical solutions to problems being faced by society, like climate change, global warming and others," she said.
Prof Farooq Masoodi called for optimal utilisation of scientific equipment in labs and also for expansion of the current programme to schools and colleges so that common scientific problems are eventually addressed with a common line of action.
Prof Farooq A Mir, convener of the programme, outlined key areas to be covered during the technical sessions of the seven-day programme. He said 30 researchers are joining the current training, being organised jointly by Kashmir University and Shivaji University Kolhapur under a hub-and-spook mechanism.
Dr Nisar A Mir delivered a welcome address and listed different achievements of the University of Kashmir in the area of research development.
S.S.Kohli, Head (R&D Infrastructure) DST also addressed the gathering in online mode and highlighted key objectives of STUSTI.
Prof Basharat, HOD Physics delivered a vote of thanks while Dr Wasim Bari conducted proceedings of the event.