If you had been guessing that I am going to talk about some Sci-fi or life-involving scientific research here, then you are going to be disappointed.
This week, I had the privilege of attending two events - one was an open discussion forum (that had two renowned guests - one was Dr S P Mudur, and the other was Dr N Vijayaditya), and a project review committee meeting for a project, that was into developing a product, out of research efforts.
In the open discussion forum, after a few questions (including one by myself, on IT infrastructure), the discussions steered towards research in general (with IT or other innovations at the back of the mind). The summary of the discussion was that even a very non-critical research involves risk - risk of time, manpower, & money. Out of several attempts made in research, only a few of them may succeed over time, and that too the success is not guaranteed. This is in a country like India with more than a billion population, translates to spending very less on research, and expecting results in a short time, which imposes constraints on the researchers, to focus on short-term goals rather than long-term goals.
In the later project meeting, there were comparisons drawn between the product developed on home-grown research efforts, and products developed by well-known MNC's. Though the fact that the cost involved in terms of money, time, and manpower, are in no way comparable with those of the MNC products, the expectations were always there. Also, the costs associated to take the product beyond the labs, to a wide-scale user base was even more prohibitively costly affair!, which is the main reason that most of the research prototypes do not see the end of the light, and just lay in the labs.
What's more is that, even cash-rich companies or developed western nations do not expect all their research efforts to produce great outcomes, despite significant costs being associated with them, and here, there is a pressure on many fronts to get a great outcome in a short-time, and with the least of the infrastructure. Of course, this too could be achieved, by an extra-ordinary person in a select field, but could not be replicated every time and every where!
To summarize, research is a form of learning, and one should be open for failures and involves huge cost - not only in terms of money, but also in the form of time, and other risks such as a evolution of a superior technology in the future, turning the scales upside down, for an existing research effort.
