Centre bats for science outreach programmes

News:During the 107th Indian Science Congress,head of the Climate Change Programme under Department of Science and Technology has talked about the Centre’s policy on implementing scientific social responsibility(SSR).

Facts:

About Scientific Social Responsibility:

• Scientific Social Responsibility(SSR) is the confluence of scientific knowledge with visionary leadership and social conscience.
• The main objective of SSR policy is to harness the voluntary potential that is latent in the country’s scientific community to strengthen science and society linkages so as to make S&T ecosystem vibrant. 
• This primarily involves bridging science-society, science-science and society-science gaps thereby bringing trust, partnership and responsibility of science at an accelerated peace towards achieving social goals.

Features of SSR Policy:

• All Central Government Ministries and State Governments would plan and strategize their SSR in accordance with their respective mandates.
• Every knowledge institution would prepare its implementation plan for achieving its SSR goals.
• The researchers who are working on a science project funded by any of the Ministries under the Central government will have to undertake activities to popularise science and make it more accessible to the public.
• It will include a range of activities like delivering lectures in educational institutes, writing an article in a magazine or doing something beyond the curriculum.
• The science outreach would be mandatory and researchers had to include this as part of their outcome report.
• There should also be an SSR monitoring system in each institution to assess institutional projects and individual activities.

Benefits of SSR:SSR has the potential to bring scientific and innovative solutions to societal problems, especially marginalized sections of society, thereby transforming the country.Some of the benefits of SSR include:

• It can expand the domain of science and its benefits to the community by encouraging students into science through handholding and nurturing their interest.
• It can create an opportunity for cooperation and sharing of S&T resources in laboratories with other researchers in universities and colleges.
• It can help MSMEs, Startups and informal sector enterprises in increasing their overall productivity.
• It can facilitate scientific intervention in rural innovation.It can also lead to empowerment of women, disadvantaged and weaker sections of society through scientific intervention.
• Facilitating actions towards addressing Technology Vision 2035 Prerogatives and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the country such as water, ecology, health and livelihood.