Deputy CM Sisodia urges state universities to focus on bold and innovative research ideas

New Delhi: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday urged the state universities to focus on bold, innovative research ideas and assured the Vice-Chancellors of the Universities that they will have the government's full support.

The government is determined to promote innovative and ambitious research initiatives and there would be no shortage of funds from the government if universities have focused and out-of-the-box research ideas, he said. State universities need to focus on research ideas that can set a global benchmark of excellence and can provide solutions to pressing problems of society, he said.

"But now they need to focus on research projects that can set a milestone for universities of the world. In this rapidly changing world, they need to focus on research which can give immediate solutions to the problems of society," he said.

The Deputy CM said that state universities have been working as an extended arm of the state government, conducting studies and generating reports from time to time which has helped the government in taking many people-centric decisions.

"Our aim is to develop our universities as world-class institutions and this is possible only through innovative research in collaboration with universities across the world. The government will also set up an integrated mechanism to help state universities collaborate with each other on projects of similar interests," Sisodia said. He also added that universities should focus on developing products that can resolve the issue of dependency on foreign made products.

The IIIT Delhi presented its project — the development of robots which will have an emotional quotient. The objective is to empower machines with adaptive and emotional interactive abilities. The social robots react according to the emotional demands of the children it is assigned to assist. It has been tested with children with autism and has shown effective results.