Una verdad simulada

I just got back from a two-day Indo-German workshop on Microreactor Technology, held at NCL Pune. There were a few excellent talks followed by a poster session. My student, Vikram, won the third prize in the poster session.

One of the students attending the conference remarked that it was somewhat de-motivating that he is competing with people having a lot of good resources and steadily flowing funding. While he learned a lot in the workshop, its an uphill struggle to keep up with such heavily funded groups.

While it is true that good equipment — computational, experimental and analytical — allows you the freedom to pursue challenging and novel ideas, it is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for good research output. There is only one necessary condition (though, not sufficient) for good research: good ideas. The poster session itself provided good examples of research that could be done with as low as Rs. 5000. Yes, to push the work further, you need good analytical equipment, which could cost a lot. But then, with a “proof of concept” work already out of the door, one can make a compelling case to the funding agencies why this work needs funded.

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