Fostering a research culture at universities in new Bangladesh
As students lead the charge for a revamped Bangladesh, calls for sweeping reforms extend to educational institutions. Distinguished research professor Saidur Rahman of Sunway University, Malaysia, weighs in on the future of university research in this transformative era.
One of the most important purpose of the university is the creation and dissemination of new knowledge through the research is highlighted in this report. Research is also important for the branding and promoting university and the nation. New dimension in research with respect to Bangladesh with the “Research Focus University” is highlighted as well. New Center of Excellence (CoE) to resolve pressing needs of the country is presented. Research at private universities is also discussed. It was suggested to bring back Bangladeshi talent working abroad. Incentives to motivate researchers are presented. Different funding mechanism to sustain research is also highlighted.
Importance of research
With the students’ and people’s revolution, a new Bangladesh has created enormous opportunities to develop strong research foundation for the country’s universities. We should grab this golden opportunity whole heartedly to reshape our research culture for the benefit of future generation. university research creates the knowledge, idea, product, process, policies to overcome challenges country facing and to create new opportunities. Knowledge created through the university research improves academic reputation (such as ranking), ideas, innovation, students’ learning, product and process development, policy, local and international network. Without research, the dream of creating a knowledge-based society and knowledge practice will not be possible. Universities should be the centre of new knowledge in a real sense. Elevating the research culture in higher education is highly important for future prosperity that will help the country to be positioned as the knowledge-based economy. The knowledge created by university research also improves teaching at universities, equipping students with the skills they need for the future. Research is also integral part of undergraduate studies for thesis, capstone project, research-based assignment, experiment, and specialized subjects. This type of research practice/culture will be helpful for those who want to continue their postgraduate studies locally and internationally as well as for R & D job opportunities at industries.
Broadly, research is important in the following key aspects which are explained with more details:
Idea/new knowledge: Through research new knowledge/ideas are generated and disseminated to the different community/society/stakeholders/users/beneficiaries. Society is benefitted from the outcome of research. New knowledge is also beneficial for the economic development of a nation. Academic research through the scientific publications are disseminated to the scientific society for their benefits and further improvement of research to refine for the future product and process development. Other researchers can use these findings to develop and support their own research. By sharing new knowledge, researchers/academicians may attract industries to solve their real-life problems. Policy makers may use research findings to develop new policy in the emerging areas or where needed.
Reputation: High quality research is extremely important to position our universities and country globally and to attract local and internal students, funding, collaboration, industrial fund etc. Without innovative and high-quality research, our universities and country will not be visible in the global map. A country’s higher education can be promoted through ranking locally and internationally. Position of an organization can be substantially raised in this rapidly changing world through publication, impact, product/process development.
Professional Development: Through the high-quality research publications, postgraduate students and junior academic staff can be well trained to be innovative researchers, write scientific articles, improve their communication and critical thinking skills. By conducting quality research and publishing in peer review journals, students and staff will be well versed in writing good research proposal as a good proposal needs innovations, writing skills and critical problem-solving skills. There should be program to train early career researcher to motivate and train them for high quality researchers. Workshop/seminar/invited talk can be arranged to train them. They can be sent to overseas countries for the short visit or collaboration for a period of 3-6 months. It can be up to one year if possible and needed. There should be training center to train the students to be entrepreneur.
Product, process and TRL development: Research helps to develop/improve new product and process which is needed for the economic development of a country. Bangladesh has highly talented students as proven by their capability by conducting high quality research during their higher studies or working in overseas countries. This is a wonderful resource we have in Bangladesh. At this moment, international research community is tapping this benefit. Our talent should be fully trained and utilized for this purpose. Research organization also should focus on improving Technology Readiness Level (TRL) from fundamental ideas to industrial applications of real problems which are highly needed to attract industrial funding and collaboration. Research organizations should not be only focused on the fundamental aspect of research. They should have long term goal on making their research to the higher level of TRL. Certain projects with high industrial applications/demands should be prioritized, planned and funded. These types of strategies are lacking in most cases. As a result, research remained at fundamental level and hard to attract industry support. Certainly, this culture needs to be improved. There should be proper incentives to motivate/inspire researchers who are active in product and process development.
Focusing country’s niche: Bangladesh has very high potential in the area of ready-made garments industry. This is a unique opportunity for Bangladesh as no other countries can compete with Bangladesh in certain aspect. However, seriously lacking innovative solution to keep up with other competitors. Through the research, product and process development this sector can be made globally competitive with international level of standard. There will be huge economic benefits for the country as well.
Another highly potential area is the skilled migration to attract more remittances. How the existing cheap labor-based migration can be turned into skilled based migration is highly important. Research policy/strategies, investment is needed in this area as well. World class research-based training centers should be developed to make this sector international competative to fulfil the global demand with high salary. This will immensely improve the economic contribution of the country.
Global grand challenge research area: Fifth Industrial Revolution (5th IR) focusing “sustainability,” “human-centeredness,” and “environment” should be given priority in research. Artificial intelligence/Machine learning, energy security, clean energy development, Renewable energy, semiconductor/chips industries, climate change are global grant challenge areas and focused should be given in these areas as well. There are huge potentials to conduct research to overcome challenges in these niche areas. In addition to local niche areas, global grand challenges research areas should be explored to position ourselves globally and for the economic development. We have our potential talented resources to contribute in these areas and they can be well trained.
Research focused Universities:
To strengthen the research capability, few universities can be given special status with “Research Universities” like Malaysia to focus mainly on research and innovation activities. These universities can be developed as model for the other universities to follow. Competent students and staff should be recruited for the research, innovation and commercialized activities. These universities should also have separate unit specifically focusing industrial needs/demands. The unit will be specifically concentrated on the product, process development to cater the needs of industry. Focusing both academic research and industrial needs are challenging task. Performance/evaluation criteria of the unit and its staff should be mainly based on industrial activities. At the initial stage, Dhaka University, BUET, Bangladesh Agricultural University and one medical related university can be given the research university status. Later few other universities can be included based on the performance of these universities. Special funding like 5 research Universities in Malaysia should be provided to support the research activities. Proper policy/strategies, performance indicators, monitoring etc. should be developed for the best utilization of funding and outcome of the funding.
Funding sources:
Research funding is the lifeblood to conduct and develop high quality research particularly lab/experimental based research. Huge funding is needed to support for the scholarship/fellowship, research and admin staff recruitment, infrastructure and lab development with the state of art research equipment, upgrading and maintenance of equipment, materials, consumables, reagent, service, rental. Funding is also important for library facilities to support with different databases/publishers. Government can development fundamental, applied, product/process/policy development and innovation funding to support research and commercialization/innovation activities.
Industry: Industry should come forward to establish strong partnership to solve their problems. There should be mutual discussion/interaction with the industry. University/research organization/institute should develop their own research strategy, focus to accommodate the needs of industry. Infrastructure, facilities, lab should be aligned to cater the needs of industries with global grand challenge research areas. Funding through research and consultancy should be secured for the financial sustainability of the organizations.
International: Research organizations should not fully depend on the government funding for the long- term sustainability. Research should be aligned with the global grand challenge areas to attract international funding. Researchers should be trained to write attractive research grant proposal to secure international funding.
Alumni connection: Alumni may play a great role to support research funding and reshape the university in different ways. Separate units should be developed with proper strategies to attract alumni funding. They should be engaged with organizations’ research and other activities.
University’s own efforts: University should make it’s own effort to generate income through service, training, and other means to sustain financial stability and growth.
Center of Excellence:
CoE status of some of the existing research centers/institutes can be given to focus on specific research focus area. Existing Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) can be given this status as a starting point. Few other can be targeted with specific focus on ready-made garments related research areas, energy storage/green or clean energy related areas, AI, Chips/semiconductor. Flood/disaster management center might be another important CoE can be focused. Special funding need to be provided for them with specific criteria. Proper monitoring, strategies and performance criteria need to be developed as well.
Collaboration/connection:
Malaysia, China, Japan, Australia, US, UK, Korea, Middle East might be good option to be more feasible and cost effective for short visit, testing samples, joint supervision, joint publications, visiting position, online seminar/research discussion. Collaboration may overcome many challenges such as lack of facilities, funding, databases, expertise. Many Bangladeshi researchers are performing very well in different parts of the world. Some of them are top or world class researchers. They can be connected and collaboration can me established with them. They can be invited with visiting position or short-term visit. This may help to establish long term relationship to entice them permanently bring in Bangladesh. They may help to build impressive research facilities, research institute, center in the strategic niche areas. Collaboration can be with other universities around the world. However, cost effective approach should be considered as budget/funding are sometimes challenging.
Bring talented Bangladeshi back to Bangladesh:
There are many talented Bangladeshi academicians, researchers working around the world. They can be identified through search committee. There can be specific unit/section or person in charge to identify them and there should be option so that interested candidates working in foreign countries can submit their credentials to them. Their profiles from the organizations, google scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, social media can be explored. They should be connected for the higher education system so that they can contribute to reshape the country’s education system, particularly, research culture in Bangladesh.
Research at private universities:
There are already good number of private universities in Bangladesh and significantly contributing to the higher education system in Bangladesh. Some of them are even doing better than public universities. They should be given opportunities to build/establish research culture/program such as PhD and Master. They must not be undermined and must be treated fairly to establish overall research culture in Bangladesh. If there are issues/challenges/concern, those should be managed professionally through the proper quality assurance or investigation procedure without prejudice that they are private universities. Proper/best practice approach or quality assurance such as quality assurance unit, audit, accreditation, international/ISO standard should be established to ensure best quality in research. These are worldwide approaches to ensure quality. They should be given equal opportunities to get Gov funding to support their research facilities. Private universities should not focus only money-making business. Part of their revenue should be invested to build research infrastructure, scholarship/fellowship, internal funding for junior staff.
Research incentives/rewards/promotion:
Without motivation/incentives, research culture can not be established as research need huge amount of quality time and critical thinking. In overseas countries, best performing researchers are given fast promotion, financial rewards for high quality publications, citation award for the significant citation contributions, innovations. They are promoted/motivated through their achievement in their website, social media. These are some of the strategies practiced around the world. Their overload teaching load should be waived and opportunities should be given to explore research capabilities. Outstanding researchers should be given opportunities to link with national contributions in research such as committee, other research institute build up. There should be national research award for the outstanding research in publications, citations, innovations/product/process development, higher TRL readiness level, international recognition, major funding. There should motivation for outstanding PhD and master students. They should be given funding for their research and to attend conference in international countries.
