CSIR goes liberal
THE Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) may soon adopt a corporate culture with consultants from the World Bank being roped in to identify its selected laboratories and turning them into moneyspinners.
According to Raghunath Mashelkar, the new director-general of the CSIR, an action plan has been devised to extensively market CSIR technologies and also to create a work environment conducive to scientists. As an incentive, 40 per cent of the royalties earned by CSIR after marketing the technologies, will be given to the scientists who developed them. Further, CSIR scientists have been allowed to take 50 days off in a year for consultancies and no limit has been placed on earnings from these.
Said Mashelkar, who believes , that CSIR scientists possess great talent" "Our strategy is to unleash their intellectual, potential by giving them freedorii, to work and by providing the right environment." A separate budget has been created to upgrade the skills of the entire staff of the Organisation to encourage a corporate culture.