Need for enough funds to top institutions to storm into global

President Pranab Mukherjee today called for providing adequate funds to at least 10 to 15 educational institutions so that they can "storm" into the top 100 of global academic rankings, saying India cannot become a world power without having a single world-class university.
In his remarks at the end of the first day of Visitor's Conference, held for the first time at Rashtrapati Bhawan and attended by vice chancellors of universities, directors of National Institute of Technology and captains of Indian industries, he said he was happy that he had found resonance among the education institutions to strive hard for international rankings.

The educational institutes have now started looking at the international ranking processes in a more "pro-active and systematic manner", he said and referred to Indian Institute of Sciences at Bengaluru and IIT Delhi which have secured ranks within first 200 institutes in the world.
"If we provide enough funds to top 10 to 15 institutions for the next 4-5 years, I am confident that these institutions will storm into the top 100 of global academic rankings within next few years," he said in his remarks.
Pitching for more world-class institutes, Mukherjee said apart from giving the nation, the institutions, its students and its alumni a sense of pride, a high rank can help attract quality faculty and meritorious students, open fresh avenues of growth and placement for students, and provide a benchmark for continuous improvement in standards.

Talking about promoting innovators, he said innovation is the currency of the future. "Innovation converts research into wealth. Unless we recognise this reality and start working in a focused manner on creating a strong innovation culture in our country now, we will be left behind in the march to modernity," Mukherjee said.

Recalling his earlier speeches, he said he had called upon the universities to establish links with grass-roots innovators.
"The response has been very encouraging. Over 60 central institutions have started innovation clubs to provide a platform for interaction between the academic community and grassroots innovators.
He favoured creating more synergy between the activities of these clubs with innovation incubators located in technical institutes like IITs and NITs to create an innovation network.