The first meeting of the National Advisory Committee of the National Initiative on Science, Technology and Innovation Statistics (NISTIS) discussed the way forward for the initiative.

It was decided that the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Statistics will be prepared by the Project Monitoring Unit (PMU) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru.

Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Professor Ajay K Sood, who chaired the meeting, underlined the importance of the initiative and the urgent need to establish the centre to start focused work on it.

“Data is critical for knowledge-based decisions. While data is being collected by the different ministries, its centralised management is essential for taking critical decisions in the future,” he pointed out.

Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST), Dr Srivari Chandrasekhar, welcomed the initiative, highlighting the range of data that is already available with the department and emphasised the need to add to it.

Senior Adviser, DST, Dr Akhilesh Gupta, stressed on the need for a one-stop coordinated effort to bring the various efforts of accumulation of data and presented the tentative structure of the centre. He gave examples of international best practices of such efforts in USA and Japan.

Director Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Professor Govindan Rangarajan, elaborated on the functioning of the future centre at IISc.

Experts from scientific establishments discussed the governance, functioning and way forward for the centre.