Inter-institutional Linkages in Biotechnology
Research in India - A Structural Analysis
by MPK Nagpal
The paper analyses the pattern of linkages among
108 Indian research institutes which had been publishing prolifically
in the mainstream journals in the field of biotechnology during 1990-1996,
belonging to the Government R&D Sector, Academic R&D Sector and
the Industrial R&D Sector. Biotechnology being a multidisciplinary
field the extent of collaboration in different sub-fields of biotechnology
is also studied.
The parameters like the number of papers, collaborative
papers and collaborative linkages of an institute are used to construct
the Inter Institutional Collaboration Index and Collaborative Extensiveness
Index of each research institute, to examine the extent of national level
collaboration among the various research institutes, belonging to the
government, academic and industrial sectors.
The network of collaborative links of research institutes is created in
order to study the structure of the linkages among the institutes--which
institute collaborates with whom and to what extent? Which are the institutes
that fall in the center of the network and which are institute that fall
in the periphery of the network?
To study the structure of the network of linkages the number of collaborative links between the two institutes is depicted in the form of a bi-directional symmetrical matrix. The software of UCINET-IV is used to compute the Eigenvector centralities of different institutes in order to identify -- the extensively linked research institutes which occupy the central position in the network ;and also the institutes which are least linked and are at the periphery of the network. Structure of the network of linkages among the Indian research institutes shows that the network is highly central in nature as only few institutes are linked to a large number of institutes.
It is observed that unlike in most of the advanced countries the linkages among Industrial R&D Units, Academic R&D Units and Government R&D Unit is very weak in India. Extensive collaboration exists among the Government R&D Units and Academic R&D Units in the country. Most of the collaborations are bilateral in nature. Comparatively extensive collaboration is observed in subfield of medical biotechnology. An interesting observation is that the Indian research institutes collaborate more extensively with the institutes in foreign countries than with the research institutes within the countries.
Ms.M P K Nagpal
NISTADS,K S Krishnan Marg,
NEW DELHI-110012
FAX:011-5754640
Email: mpknagpal@yahoo.com
