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Promoting a Global Culture of Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2009

Bhikhu Parekh*
Affiliation:
211 Victoria Avenue, Hull, HU5 3EF, UK. E-mail: b.parekh@bigfoot.com

Abstract

Basic scientific research is largely limited to the West. Original scientific contributions by the rest of the world are extremely limited, though China, South Korea and India are beginning to make their presence felt. This absence of scientific research is largely due to the undeveloped state of scientific culture. To counter this, systematic and rigorous theoretical training of talented minds is crucial. That requires close interaction with the West. The author suggests various ways to do so.

Type
Focus: Global Science
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2009

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References

Notes and References

1. China’s share of the world’s scientific publications shot up from 2.5 to 6.52%, and South Korea’s from 0.70 to 2.70%, between 1995 and 2004. During the same period, the share of France and the UK declined by 0.5% and that of the US by 3%. See Headbeater, C. and Wilsdon, J. (2007) The Atlas of Ideas: How Asian Innovation can Benefit us all (London: Demos), p. 6.Google Scholar
2. Dr Han Hoon, a Korean immunologist experimenting with stem cells in liver treatments, thinks, perhaps too optimistically, that by blending eastern philosophies of prevention with the latest advances in genetics, Asian science might provide an alternative to and even leap ahead of western approaches. See Headbeater, C. and Wilsdon, J. (2007) The Atlas of Ideas: How Asian Innovation can Benefit us all (London: Demos), p. 27.Google Scholar
3.World University Ranking, The Times Higher Education Supplement, 28 October 2005. This is one of several such rankings and broadly corresponds to their findings.Google Scholar
4. ‘IITs have contributed more to innovations in other countries than in India. An IIT is a departure lounge for the global knowledge economy’. See Bound, K. (2007) India: The Uneven Innovator (London: Demos), p. 14.Google Scholar
5. Cited in Headbeater, C. and Wilsdon, J. (2007) The Atlas of Ideas: How Asian Innovation can Benefit us all (London: Demos), p. 21.Google Scholar
6. India is also setting up Indian Institutes of Scientific Education and Research devoted to fostering research and producing hundreds of PhDs a year.Google Scholar
7. As Professor Balaram of the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore points out, multinational R&D centres are ‘only geographically located in Bangalore, they contribute little to the science base here. In fact, as the R&D centres grow, interaction with science diminishes’. Cited in Bound, K. (2007) India: The Uneven Innovator (London: Demos), p. 34.Google Scholar
8.Bound, K. (2007) India: The Uneven Innovator (London: Demos), p. 48.Google Scholar