Santosh Noronha (IIT Bombay) on Failure: No Failures in Academia
What does failure look like within the confines of academia? Do the roots of our problem lie in the very mindset we have about failure across all streams? How much does a degree from a good institution count when we don’t have to the skills to employ them on the field.
Santosh Noronha is a researcher from IIT, Bombay and these are the questions that he feels loom over the academy.
The Context
Journals form an integral part of academia, studies getting published form an integral part of a scholar’s work, time and efforts. Institutions, especially elite ones in the our country, have rather cutthroat admission procedures.
A full-time investment on part of the applicant who hopes to ensure a secure future is for them to equip themselves with skills that are crucial to their vocation.
The Failure
While there are a numerous amount of journals that are published year round, only a fraction of them focus on failures.
Noronha questions if this is the right attitude to take when it comes to science and finds that fails to meet up to the basic tenet of the scientific temper- that failures are necessary and absolutely crucial to a richer understanding of the observable world. According to Noronha, most universities across the world focus heavily on lab work, to train and equip their students to take on challenges.
However, he feels that Indian academia is confined to the classroom, to theory. “We do not provide basic lab facilities, but we expect our students to go out and build a bridge, how is that possible?”
The Diagnosis
In order to push creativity, innovation, risks and thereby promote breakthroughs, Noronha feels that journals must also publish studies that have failed. This would encourage scientists and researchers to take more risks and also facilitate a good blueprint of paths they really ought not to take.
Noronha also feels that there is a dire need to improve infrastructure and make students entering academia focus more on the practical aspects of their learning, rather than being bogged down by theory in their years at university, with little preparation for the outside world.
Such a change is required not just for the well being of the student or researcher in their professional career, but ultimately works in the self interest of everyone who stands to benefit from their work.
