Online Supervision of Scientific Research during the Pandemic

What have the lockdowns done to research and research supervision since March 2020?

Held on 8th November, 2020

Panelists:

1. R Chandrasekar , Professor of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad

2. H T Lalremsanga , Assoc. Professor and Head of Department of Zoology, Mizoram University.

3. Anindita Bhadra Assoc. Professor of Biological Sciences, IISER Kolkata.

4. S Shankaranarayanan , Professor of Physics, IIT B

5. Sobhan Sen , Assoc. Professor, School of Physical Sciences, JNU

Chair: Ram Ramaswamy, IIT Delhi

Moderator: V Madhurima, CUTN

Major points shared:

1. Most of the teachers were able to cope in one way or the other with the sudden shift to online teaching, but research has suffered .

2. Some of the major issues that are hindering research in Sceinces are

   1. Shutting down of hostels making laboratories inaccisbile to students.

   2. Lockdowns making field work inaccissible.

   3. Lack of funding, especially in cases where students were stranded in remote places while at field work and could not move out of the place. Subsistence itself became problematic and the concerned faculty had to pay from their pockets.

   4. Workstations and major equipment had to be shutdown for the want of manpower.

   5. Non-availability of firm policy decision for the finances related to sponsored research projects.

3. Some of the major concerns of the research supervisors/guides are

   1. Financial implications of loss of one year of research, without an extension of fellowship.

   2. The mental health of research scholars under these conditions.

   3. The fate of students in their final years of PhD programs, with them not having access to laboratories.

   4. The future prospectus of the research scholars with such delays, with special reference to their post-doctoral programs.

4. Some of the positive points and affirmative actions of this period

   1. Ease of online meetings

   2. Writing review articles and thinking about new research problems.

   3. Semi-lockdown periods were used to send samples for analysis to other institutes.

   4. Whatsapp videos were used extensively to connect with the scholars.