Governments should not fund any scientific research whose consequences are unclear.

Technological and scientific development is one of the cornerstones in a nation’s quest for development. In order to achieve a significant progress in the field of science, government and the universities (or colleges) encourage innovation and research among students by providing the adequate funding and infrastructure. Some people argue that government should provide absolute financial help to the research projects without evaluating the utility of research. According to them, government should not be concerned with the practical implications and should have a copious budget for research which should be allocated to almost all types of research at all levels. However, in reality, government should follow a strict protocol in funding research in order to promote quality and fruitful innovation among bright and deserving students only.

A research project requires significant investment. Cost incurred includes cost of infrastructure, salary of professor or faculty in charge, administrative cost in case of publishing of papers and patents. As per a survey conducted by an NGO last year, around 500 applications for research funding in IIT’s in India were not even considered as government had already allocated all the funds to previous applications which it had received first. Later it was proved that there were 40 potent applications in that list of 500 which unfortunately had missed on government funding. These 40 applications, which unfortunately had missed on the government funding, were later considered for research by different foreign universities.

Also most of the research applications in today’s scenario are vague and are based on hypothetical and theoretical assumptions. Yet, some of these get cleared and receive the financial help, which otherwise could have been utilized for a better and result driven research project. Hence, it is imperative that such research applications are identified and are not given the green signal. Also, there should be well defined and demarcate qualification criteria’s for receiving government aid in form of funds, tuition fees waivers etc. There should be a committee to organize and steer this process in a fair and transparent manner.

To conclude, government should try to prevent unfruitful projects, whose consequences are unclear, from getting the funding; rather government should divert the permitted funds to the potent research that is having the potential to yield results and is having least practical limitations .