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.
