‘Important not to confuse genuine achievements with conjecture; scientists should bring them out’: TIFR director Sandip Trivedi

Director of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Sandip Trivedi in south Mumbai on Friday. Karma Sonam Bhutia

A few days in a year, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), opens its otherwise tightly secured gates to public for awareness programmes. The premiere research institute is focusing on bringing more students into science. TIFR director Sandip Trivedi tells Indian Express about the need for a ‘handshake’ between scientists, politicians and parliamentarians.

Q: Last month TIFR held its Annual Science Day when it opened its gates to the public. What is the importance of such activities?

A: Creating awareness is extremely important because in the end, we want to get young people excited about science so that they take up science as a career. India’s biggest strength is its young people and so we want to be a centre of stirring their imagination, drawing them towards science. It also helps the institute in the long run because students come here, get themselves associated with us, always remember that experience and then they may go far and wide in the world, but when the time comes to think about settling down in a more permanent association, sometimes they come back to us. So it works for us in terms of improving the quality of our faculty.

Q: Apart from research does the institute participate in public policy?

A: When it comes to public policy, that’s not been traditionally what we engage in institutionally. Of course, several of our scientists have gone on to occupy important positions and played a key role in setting public policy for the government. I think we need to do more, actually. It’s an area that we’ve only slowly been talking about but having our students even exposed a little bit more in internships in the government will be great.

We need that because the government has to engage with science more, our politicians have to engage, our parliamentarians have to engage with science more. How do we do that? We need to have the scientists trying to do that handshake. Not just senior scientists, but students, younger people trying to do that.

Q: Last year, during the March for Science, thousands of scientists across the country came onto roads and said there weren’t enough funds allotted to scientific research. Does TIFR have a similar experience?

A: I appreciate the fact that there is concern across the science community and especially there is concern that curiosity-driven science may not get the kind of support it has got in the past. This is the concern. It’s an important one. TIFR has been lucky in a sense. We come within the Department of Atomic Energy. We’re an autonomous organisation but we get a substantial part of our funding from the department. We continue to get a reasonable amount of funding. The department as a whole also has its funding fluctuate and that of course has implications for us but by and large we’ve done better than many other science organisations. This doesn’t mean that we can take it for granted. We have to work hard at justifying the importance of what we do.

If I think about it, what is exceptional is the kind of support that science got in the first few decades after independence. There was a definite commitment on the part of the political leadership to support science. They didn’t ask what will the rewards be tomorrow. I think the enlightened leadership that we had, which was just willing to trust it will happen, we can’t assume that we will have that kind of understanding in the future. So we have to constantly connect what we do to why it’s useful. I think that’s the challenge for us.

Q: Another concern of scientific community during the March for Science was the rise in pseudo-scientific ideas. It has been compounded by ministers and politicians being very loose with their words when it comes to science. Do you think that’s true?

A: There have been some statements for sure that have been noticed and commented upon. My reaction to this is: We have to understand a little bit the intention behind the statements. The fact of the matter is there is a great deal to be proud of in genuine terms in India’s legacy in science and mathematics. Who should be bringing that out? It’s the scientists and mathematicians who should bring it out that look, here are the genuine contributions that we have made. But it is important not to be confusing what we’ve genuinely done with what is perhaps conjectural or not even true. What we need to do more is to bring out the really remarkable genuine contributions for instance in Mathematics, in astronomy, in medicine.

Q: In the recent years, there are more industry partnership in applied sciences because there’s an immediate payback. Has it happened in fundamental science yet?

A: As far as TIFR is concerned, there has been very little. We have to recognise that by its very nature it is not going to be as easy to connect basic sciences to industry as it is to connect applied sciences. It is something we are beginning to think about more seriously. How do we engage with companies to try and do projects of mutual interest, potentially have technology transfer. Of course the connection between biological sciences and the pharma industry is known. We now have an incubation centre tied to our National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, and it holds great promise. There are definitely areas where there is joint interest. Some of these areas are cutting-edge —- new way of using quantum mechanics to communicate or build computers. There are start-ups coming up in quantum communication and our scientists can engage in. We need a way to handhold the process.

Q: What is the sex ratio at TIFR like? There are very few women in Science and now we are seeing IITs try a whole lot of policies to bring more women into the institutes. Does TIFR have any such plans?

A: If you look at the women to men ratio in our faculty, it’s quite small. It’s also unevenly distributed. In the biological sciences, it’s better. In physical sciences it’s worse. We are mindful of that. The attitude is that we do want to encourage more women to go in for science as a career. Role models help. It’s a little bit of a chicken and egg problem. We do want to give wide publicity to the women faculty we have. We make sure in all our interview committees we have women faculty present. It’s something we have talked about but it is important to implement that when we go to hubs of education, we must have our women scientists telling their stories. I think that can make a big difference.

Q: What does an institute like TIFR being in the city mean for an average Mumbaikar with no science background? What does she gain out of TIFR?

A: What she could gain from it is just a sense that there’s a world-class institution in your neighbourhood where world-class scientists come from all over. When Stephen Hawking was here in 2001, there was a public lecture and everyone got a chance to see him, hear him. Then that your children, if they are interested in science, can come for our open houses, interact with scientists freely. If they want to get more information, career advice, they can write to us. If they want to intern with us, they can do that. If your children are in colleges and schools and if you want them to hear a scientist, ask your school and college to invite us and people are happy to talk about science.