Noted biochemist and former director of the Indian Institute of Science, G. Padmanabhan, was announced as the winner of the Vigyan Ratna. Photo: connect.iisc.ac.in

The government has announced the first set of Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar, or national awards for scientists, ever since it controversially cut down the number of such awards in 2022. Thirty-three of these awards are slated to be given on August 23, the National Space Day to mark Chandrayaan 3’s moon landing, and were announced on Wednesday (August 7, 2024).

Following the rehaul of the scientific awards scheme, the Ministry of Science and Technology in January this year had notified four categories of awards, comprising a maximum of 56, for scientists. These are up to three Vigyan Ratna to recognise life-time achievements and contributions made in a given field of science and technology, up to 25 Vigyan Shri to recognise distinguished contributions, up to 25 Vigyan Yuva: Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award to recognise and encourage young scientists who made an exceptional contribution, and up to three Vigyan Team awards to recognise a team of three or more scientists/researchers/innovators who have made an exceptional contribution working in a team.

Noted biochemist and former director of the Indian Institute of Science, G. Padmanabhan, was announced as the winner of the Vigyan Ratna. Thirteen scientists spanning a diverse set of fields from physics, chemistry, mathematics, atomic energy, biological sciences, earth sciences were awarded the Vigyan Shree and 18 scientists were nominated for the Viyan Yuva. The Vigyan team award went to the ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 team. The awards are expected to be given at a ceremony on August 23 here.

The awards this year were decided via a nomination process on a portal maintained by the Ministry of Home Affairs that is a repository of a range of national awards.

Recently, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research announced the winners of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) awards for 2022. The announcement was highly anticipated not only due to the nearly year-long delay in declaring the results, but also because it came amid the government’s plans for a major revamp of the structure of science and medicine awards.

In September 2022, the Ministry of Science and Technology discontinued nearly 300 existing science awards – with the exception of the SSB awards – while reports emerged of a draft plan to replace them with a smaller set of “highly deserving” awards.

A new system of awards

The new system, called the ‘Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar’ (RVP), includes a bouquet of awards: Vigyan Shri, Vigyan Yuva-Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, Vigyan Team, and Vigyan Ratna. The government has expressed an intention to keep the RVP at par with the Padma and other national awards.

The new awards will be open to an expanded group of “scientists, technologists and innovators (or teams) working in government, private sector organisations or individuals working outside any organisation”. The RVP will be given across 13 scientific domains, including basic sciences, applied sciences, medicine, and engineering. The award announcement stated that “representation from each domain/field, including gender parity will be ensured”.

Like the Padma awards, the RVP awards will invite nominations for some time, and be evaluated by a RVP Committee comprising “the Principal Scientific Adviser to Government of India and … Secretaries of Science Departments, members of Science and Engineering Academies” and noted science/technology scholars.

Differences from older awards

The newly proposed RVP structure is significant for many reasons. In a welcome step to move beyond recognitions largely restricted to scientists with regular positions in academia, the new awards are also open to innovators and technologists, including those in industry, and with diverse, non-regular affiliations.

The new awards will also have expanded eligibility criteria, including technology-led innovations or products, in addition to discovery-based research. The RVP also includes a set of team awards (Vigyan Team), to acknowledge the increasingly collaborative, cross-disciplinary, translational and intersectional nature of scientific research.

Importantly, with the exception of the Vigyan Yuva-SSB award – for scientists up to the age of 45 years – the other RVP awards don’t have an age limit, while explicitly committing to ensure equitable gender representation. This is notable vis-à-vis long-term conversations calling for reforms of the ageism and gender bias pervading science in India.

The RVP awards will also be open to Persons of Indian Origin abroad, which is relevant given India’s large and accomplished scientific, engineering, and technology diaspora, and the increasingly global footprint of modern science.

Finally, the new award system has eliminated cash prizes, and will instead include certificates and medals.

Giving to and taking from the awards

As India revamps the way it recognises good science, it is an opportune time to reflect on the intent, the implementation, and the selection and evaluation processes. This is so that the new system represents both the aspirations of scientists and the nature of contemporary science practice in India and ensures that the challenges that beset the older crop of awards aren’t carried forward.

First: to ensure that the RVP system recognises only truly “notable and inspiring contributions”, the awards’ descriptions must include a statement that the contributions are over and above the standard job description of a scientist/technologist, not merely incremental work or work integral to their appointment.

Second: since the awards are national recognitions for exemplary work, dedicated citations for teaching, mentoring, science communication, public engagement and outreach, and leadership and administration are conspicuous by absence. (Some of these awards were previously conferred by the science academies.) Scientists engaged in these initiatives often do so in addition to their primary responsibilities, so these contributions must be included in the new award structure – preferably as separate categories or at least weighed upon at the time of selection.

Third: The age limit of 45 years for the Vigyan Yuva-SSB for young scientists is a serious challenge to the new system’s own commitment to ensure gender parity. In their erstwhile version (with the same age limit), the SSB awards were notorious for their lack of gender representation, and the age limit – which works against women with relocation, childcare responsibilities, and career breaks – was a big reason why.

So, the Vigyan Yuva-SSB award’s definition of a ‘young scientist’ must be reconsidered based on, say, the number of years since a candidate held an independent position or it must offer eligibility extensions based on personal considerations (as the EMBO Gold Medal does). Otherwise, it could erect its own systemic barriers to ensuring gender parity.

A potential blueprint

Fourth: When the RVP award process is implemented, the selection process must adhere to the predetermined timelines, provide a public list of shortlisted applicants, and include gender-balanced and diverse selection committees, international jury members, and a non-partisan jury member – a non-scientist, preferably – to make sure the selection is fair.

Fifth: The new award system must pledge to consciously seek to ensure, in addition to gender parity, the proper socioeconomic and demographic representation among awardees, and account for contributions made in the face of serious systemic social challenges and/or constraints and considerations related to the workplace.

Finally: While some have questioned the need for awards for scientists at all, we in India lack the data to make this decision. In any case, continuously evaluating the impact of the new award system on subsequent scientific work, the growth of topics and fields, the effects of role models on diversity and inclusivity in science in India, and scientific temper of the country at large will be useful.

With these aspects in place, this is an opportunity for the RVP awards to become a blueprint for an expansive, inclusive, and transparent award system that can be adopted by scientific ecosystems in other countries as well.

Karishma Kaushik is the Executive Director of IndiaBioscience.

• ‘Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar’ (RVP), includes a bouquet of awards: Vigyan Shri, Vigyan Yuva-Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, Vigyan Team, and Vigyan Ratna. The government has expressed an intention to keep the RVP at par with the Padma and other national awards.
• The new awards will be open to an expanded group of “scientists, technologists and innovators (or teams) working in government, private sector organisations or individuals working outside any organisation”. The RVP will be given across 13 scientific domains, including basic sciences, applied sciences, medicine, and engineering. 
• Like the Padma awards, the RVP awards will invite nominations for some time, and be evaluated by a RVP Committee comprising “the Principal Scientific Adviser to Government of India and … Secretaries of Science Departments, members of Science and Engineering Academies” and noted science/technology scholars.

The RVP subsumes the existing Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) awards that the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has been awarding since the 1960s. However, it seems that the awardees will no longer get prize money. Will this not be a disappointment for scientists?

Shekhar Mande: The ultimate motivation for a scientist is not really an award; it is to make a substantial contribution to the world of knowledge and (hope that) our discoveries or scientific contributions will one day appear in textbooks. Several scientists aspire that subsequent generations learn about their findings. Those who do good work automatically earn recognition, which could also be annoying at times. Having talked to several Nobel Laureates, I’ve heard that winning the prize takes their time away from science. This is because of greater involvement in public speaking and trying to get people motivated to [choose] careers in science. That is not bad in itself; it is, in fact, desirable.

Nonetheless, the primary motivation is not an award or money. There is the famous story of Grigori Perelman, the Russian mathematician, who solved the Poincare conjecture (a math problem unsolved for over a century). He was awarded the Fields Medal (considered the Nobel Prize for mathematics) but refused it (saying he is ‘not interested in money or fame’). Awards and money aren’t the only motivations for scientists.

Dinesh Sharma: It is a welcome decision to have a new set of awards for scientists and engineers. In a country with such with a large science and technology infrastructure, we need many more science awards because they act as incentives for researchers and scientists.

What is disappointing is that the RVP subsumes existing awards, including the SSB awards. And of course, there will be no cash component. But what makes an award truly prestigious? Is it only the money? If you take away money [from the] SSB, does it lose prestige? Who confers the award matters. The SSB combines all these attributes and that’s what makes it important because, as we know, S.S. Bhatnagar was one of the founding fathers of Indian science. So, although it was given by CSIR, it had a pan-India reach and anybody could apply for it. Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, who passed away last week, was awarded the SSB in 1961 when he was a young scientist at IARI (Indian Agricultural Research Institute); he was not famous at the time. And maybe that propelled him to do more. So, all this brings prestige to this award. By abolishing the SSB awards or by diluting its character, you are taking away the heritage and prestige built over time.

Dr. Mande, you are an SSB awardee and a former head of CSIR. Do we know when cash began to be given along with the awards?

Shekhar Mande: The awards were instituted in the 1960s to recognise those who contributed not only to Indian science but science in general. I’m not sure when money was added to the prize. Today, many awards which have been instituted by private organisations give far more money than the SSB awards, but I think they are yet to reach the same level of acceptability.

We know that Indian scientists are not the best paid in the world. For decades now, the natural sciences have not been able to attract more and more of the brightest people. And despite a large scientific pool, India hasn’t been able to allocate even 1% of its GDP to research and development (R&D), whereas technologically advanced nations contribute close to 2%. So, is there a signal being sent that money isn’t important to nurture Indian science? Moreover, the most prestigious sports, literature, and film awards come with money.

Shekhar Mande: The new structure announced tries to reward a larger number of scientists and removes many of the difficulties we have had with the SSB awards. Five awards were given only in seven disciplines and at most two people (per award). During my tenure (as Director General), we were debating whether we should add more disciplines. That problem seems to have been addressed. (The Vigyan Yuva-SSB will be awarded to at least 25 recipients spanning 13 disciplines.) Money in science is an issue that all of us have been debating time and again. However, a substantial part of the 2% GDP in other countries also comes from private organisations. Unfortunately in India, the contribution from private industry to R&D is not heavy. There are exceptions, but a large number of industries still do not put in the money that they should (in R&D).

Dinesh Sharma: I think it is unfair to compare scientists with sportsperson or actors because scientists aren’t primarily motivated by money and fame. However, being popular is important for actors and sportspersons as they become brands and, after winning medals, make more money. China tried to do the same thing (provide cash incentives to scientists) a few years ago and it became very controversial. In other countries too, they started giving cash incentives to scientists who get published in top-ranking journals, such as Nature, Science and Cell. It became a race among scientists to publish a paper in one of these top journals rather than pursue their rational line of research. When the Infosys Prize was launched with ₹50,00,000 as prize money, there was a fear that it will undermine the [prestige of] SSB. But it did not do so. Although the Infosys Prize has gone to some fantastic people, it hasn’t replaced the brand value of the SSB, which is so strong, but is undermined by removing the cash component. The CSIR has constantly evolved these awards, starting by awarding ₹10,000 (in the 1960s) to ₹5 lakh (for the prize winners of 2022). Money brings prestige and incentive to the scientists to work. If doing away with money was an independent decision of the CSIR council, that would have been acceptable, but this is a decision imposed by the government and clearly undermines the autonomy of scientific institutions. That’s a larger issue apart from the money component.

How do you make careers in science more attractive to the young beyond mega prizes?

Dinesh Sharma: There is a crisis across disciplines and professions, not just science, with notable exceptions. There was a time when people came to journalism to serve society,. That was in the early years following Independence. Dr. Swaminathan qualified to become an IPS (Indian Police Service) officer, which he rejected because he wanted to work in science. Then he went on to do his PhD and came back and joined the Agricultural Research Institute. People chose professions for the love of that subject or because they wanted to serve society since those were the days of nation building. Dr. Swaminathan was moved by the Bengal famine in the 1940s. Such motivations may be lacking now.

But yes, there are several youngsters who would like to take up a career in science. And for that they need a reasonable salary. Scientists are human beings. With youngsters, there is an urge to do something, achieve something, get published in a research journal, but they also want to have decent money to lead their life. Unless we give them an attractive package, this crisis will continue. We need role models. And we need good money.

Shekhar Mande: I don’t think the romanticism for science has died down. I know several young people who secured the top ranks in the Joint Entrance Examination (for slots at the Indian Institutes of Technology) but have come to areas such as mathematics or physics. Many scientists in our labs are among the brightest in the world. Some may go abroad, but they are not lost to the world of science. They have made some fantastic contributions over the years. While many of the Central universities continue to attract the best to science, there is a real concern that many who choose science in State universities have chosen it for lack of other options.

The Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar awards will be announced annually on May 11, which is National Technology Day, and will be awarded on National Space Day, August 23. Illustration for representation purpose only.

Nearly a year after the Union Government decided to cut the number of prizes annually awarded by its science-affiliated Ministries, it has instituted the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar (RVP) — 56 prizes to felicitate scientists, technologists and innovators. Akin to the prestigious Padma awards, these awards will not include any cash component; instead, they will likely bestow only a certificate and medallion on the awardee, sources confirmed to The Hindu.

According to the proposal seen by The Hindu, which is yet to be made public, the RVP will comprise three Vigyan Ratna awards, as well as 25 Vigyan Shri, 25 Vigyan Yuva-Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, and three Vigyan Team awards.

Multi-disciplinary

These prizes will be awarded annually for physics, chemistry, biological sciences, mathematics and computer science, earth science, medicine, engineering science, agricultural science, environmental science, technology and innovation, atomic energy, space science and technology, and a 13^th category, simply called ‘Others’.

“It may be ensured that each domain may be represented. Adequate representation of women may also be ensured,” said the proposal forwarded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

Cash prizes unlikely

The 56 proposed awards are a stark reduction from the almost 300 science prizes that used to be given by Union Ministries. In their previous avatar, the prizes also had a significant cash component. The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) awards, given by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) since 1958, now includes ₹5 lakh per winner, as well as a salary perk. In fact, the government announced the names of 12 winners of the SSB awards just last week, after a year’s delay .The National Technology Awards, given to teams by the Technology Development Board (a DST entity), also include cash prizes worth ₹25 lakh.

Open to PIOs

The new awards will also be open to persons of Indian origin (PIOs), though a maximum of one such may be awarded the Vigyan Ratna, while three PIOs each can be selected for the Vigyan Shri and the VY-SSB. However, PIOs will not be eligible for the Vigyan Team awards.

The Vigyan Ratna awards shall be for “lifetime contributions along with excellence made in any field of science”, the Vigyan Shri for “distinguished contribution to any field”, and the SSB for “exceptional contribution by young scientists”. The team awards shall be for three or more researchers who have made an “exceptional contribution as a team”. There are no age limits for any prizes except the SSB, for which recipients must be 45 years or younger.

Starting in 2024

The awards will be announced annually on May 11, which is National Technology Day, and will be awarded on National Space Day, August 23. These are the days on which India successfully conducted its second nuclear test in 1998, and then catapulted the Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander on the moon this year.

The RVP awards, which will commence from 2024, will be conferred by the President of India or the Vice President, according to the proposal. A committee will be constituted every year, comprising the Secretaries of six science Ministries, up to four presidents of science and engineering academies, and six distinguished scientists and technologists from various fields. The CSIR will coordinate the administration of the awards process for two years, after which it will be taken over by the proposed National Research Foundation.

Truncation from 300 awards

The RVP awards are a major truncation of the nearly 300 awards that were given by scientific Ministries, though most of these were internal awards. The DST, for instance, used to award 207 prizes, of which four were national awards, 97 were private endowment awards, 54 were lecture or scholarship awards, and 56 were internal awards. The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) used to give 25 performance awards, conferred by public sector units, and 13 “non-core” domain awards.

Last year, an MHA-constituted committee decided to do away with all the atomic energy awards, and replace them with “an award of very high stature.” As per the latest recommendation, all internal awards of departments will be discontinued, save one award of the DAE in the name of Homi Jehangir Bhabha with a maximum of 30 recipients. Internal awards given by the Department of Space, the Indian Council of Medical Research, and the Ministry of Earth Sciences have also been rescinded.

• The Union Government has instituted the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar (RVP) — 56 prizes to felicitate scientists, technologists and innovators.
• Akin to the prestigious Padma awards, these awards will not include any cash component; instead, they will likely bestow only a certificate and medallion on the awardee.
• The RVP will comprise three Vigyan Ratna awards, as well as 25 Vigyan Shri, 25 Vigyan Yuva-Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, and three Vigyan Team awards.