India shows second highest growth in science research: Report

According to the Nature Index 2016 Rising Stars report, while India made its mark, Chinese institutions are leading the world in rapidly increasing high-quality research outputs.

India is at the second position among countries with the highest increase in their contribution to high-quality scientific research, according to a new report which shows that the growth of research in the country is only behind China’s.

The institutions from India among the top 100 highest performers across the globe include Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

While India made its mark, Chinese institutions are leading the world in rapidly increasing high-quality research outputs, according to the Nature Index 2016 Rising Stars report.

As many as 40 of the top 100 performers are from China with 24 of those showing growth above 50 per cent since 2012.

The US — which remains the largest contributor to high-quality scientific papers overall — has 11 entrants into the top 100, despite many starting from a high base.

Nine institutions feature from the UK, eight from Germany and five from India. The Rising Stars report used the Nature Index which tracks the author affiliations of published research articles by more than 8,000 global institutions in a group of 68 journals.

Chemistry made up for more than half (51 per cent) of India’s scientific contributions to the index in 2015. About 36 per cent was from physical sciences, nine per cent from life sciences and four per cent from earth and environmental sciences.

An earlier report, published by National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), shows that less than three per cent of school-going children want to pursue a career in science in India.