Ad-hoc committee established to identify, prioritise national research needs

9 July 2025 08:58 pm Views - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}} 3 Bookmark

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Colombo, July 9 (Daily Mirror) - An ad-hoc committee has been established for the first time in the country, to identify and prioritise national research needs, the President’s Media Division (PMD) said.

The PMD said the primary objective of this committee is to classify various research initiatives being conducted nationwide according to their priority, based on national development goals and national requirements.

The committee, comprising 20 leading experts from diverse fields, is co-chaired by Senior Advisor to the President on Science and Technology Professor Gomika Udugamasooriya and Professor Rohan Fernando, Chairman of the National Science and Technology Commission (NASTEC) under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

"The other key functions of this committee include aligning research and development policies implemented in universities, research institutes, industries and government organisations with national development goals. It also aims to encourage the allocation of national budget funds for the research and development sector based on research priorities, to ensure efficient utilisation of these funds.

“For a long time, Sri Lanka's research and development sector has operated as an isolated, fragmented and scattered system. Consequently, it often failed to make a significant impact on the country's economic expansion or societal advancement.

“With the establishment of this committee, the government hopes to create a more efficient, strategic and socially responsive research and development sector. This will be achieved by gathering data from grassroots to ministerial levels through institutional reports from stakeholders and national-level surveys.

“Furthermore, another objective is to extend data-driven decision-making and financial accountability to the research and development sector," the PMD said.

Comments - 3

sss Wednesday, 09 July 2025 10:37 PM

The way this article describes it , it seems the priorities of this effort is going to be misaligned with the immediate need of the country towards developing a knowledge based economy. 1. Research and development should not be the immediate priority, its benefits are vague and long-term and as happened before will be reduced to publishing academic papers. Also it is a luxury for a country with a subsistence economy. 2. The approach should be technology transfer first. The Asian countries which now have well performing knowledge based economies first started by transferring technologies (which suit them) from advanced countries in the West. The primary criteria was high labor cost in those advanced countries. Then after successful implementation of ventures the research and development naturally evolved. 3. One of the best place to start is the technology and management expertise accumulated over 50 years of the war. The experts who handle these are still around.

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Kays Thursday, 10 July 2025 12:01 PM

The way to increase primary research is through increasing funding for research at universities and research institutions, not by forming committees. Committees only consume time, chinese rolls, and tea.

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sss Thursday, 10 July 2025 04:10 PM

Further to what I wrote above this accumulated knowledge (with the help of the experts and professionals) can be readily converted to consultancy and industrial ventures of both civilian and military applications. Also there can be other areas where tech transfer may result in immediate economic benefits 4. One of the urgent needs is to establish big enough foreign income sources to supplement tourism and foreign employment which are vulnerable to external factors as demonstrated during covid. Technology transfer with careful consideration can quickly establish such sources

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