Biswabrata Goswami
MIDNAPORE, 25 JUNE: Prestigious Nature Index, a research wing of the world famous science journal Nature ranked two central government institutes of West Bengal among the top 10 research institutes in India. The first is the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) and the second is the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) Kolkata with sixth and seventh positions respectively in its latest score sheet of 1 April 2020 – 31 March 2021 (https://www.natureindex.com/institution-outputs/generate/All/countries-India/All/score).
The positions of the state universities and institutes in West Bengal are rather bleak in the pan Indian scenario. Among the 244 research institutes and universities in India there are only 18 from West Bengal which included the University of Calcutta, Jadavpur, Presidency and Vidyasagar University occupying 25th, 27th, 65th and 80th positions respectively.
Among the West Bengal research institutes, the highest position (13th) is being occupied by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, again a central government institute while the Visva-Bharati University and Indian Statistical Institute are at the 48th and 68th ranks.
One of the most interesting facts about Vidyasagar University is the performance of two college teachers affiliated to the university. In its web page entitled “Outputs for Vidyasagar University” one finds the names of Abdulla Al Mamon of Vivekananda Satavarshiki Mahavidyalaya Manikpara and Md A Asgar of the Prabhat Kumar College, Contai as joint authors of two different scientific articles published in the journals of European Physical Journal C and Physical Review Letters respectively. The only name of Dr. Kuntal Chatterjee, Assistant Professor and a Raman Fellow of the Department of Physics Vidyasagar University is found in the Output page of the Nature Index. Dr. Chatterjee was UGC-Raman Fellow at RICE University, Houston Texas, USA in 2015(http://vidyasagar.ac.in/Faculty/Profile?fac_u_id=Fac-PHY-14).
The Nature Index is a database that tracks institutions and countries and their scientific output since its introduction in 2016. Each year, Nature Index ranks the leading institutions (which can be companies, universities, colleges, government agencies, research institutes or NGOs) and countries by the number of scientific articles and papers published in leading 82 journals selected by an independent group of experts. The Nature Index was conceived by Nature Research. In total, more than 10,000 institutions are listed in the Nature Index. The selected journals include Nature, Cell Biology, The European Physical Journal C, American Journal of Human Genetics, Science and the like.
Featured Image : @Nature Index
