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• The Shanti Swaroop Vatnagar Prize selection process and winner composition suggests that the prize suffers from intra-group bias.
• This and other annual prizes are primarily awarded to male candidates from the so-called “upper caste”, considered the best institutions in the country.
• The award’s legacy is emblematic of the injustice in science in India that remains uncorrected by most of the scientific groups and societies in the country.

Centuries ago, in post-Renaissance Europe, scientific methods and practices drew people driven by a passion for truth, regardless of fame, financial reward, or other forms of recognition.

Today, the scientific enterprise is no longer an amateur interest, with an attendant cohort of rewards and recognition reflected in the number of Ph.D.s, scientific journals and, perhaps most importantly, their rate and frequency. It’s a lifelong competitive career option.Where your papers are published in these journals.

The exponential growth in the number of scientists has far-reaching implications for society and science. But with this surge in scientific pursuits, we are also becoming increasingly aware of growing inequalities in science. For businesses to continue to have a positive impact on people’s minds and lives, they must be open to everyone, both for themselves and others.

India is a prime example of such inequality. Consider the annual Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award. The selection process and winner composition show that the award suffers from intra-group bias. This and other annual prizes are primarily awarded to male candidates from the so-called “upper caste”, considered the best institutions in the country.

In general, winners are empowered by a strong network of peers and influential mentors at these top institutions, and are also generous recipients of charity from funding institutions. And because the award selection system is based on nominations, those who wield greater power within scientific institutions are often gifted yet “lonely” who are already working against many odds. At the expense of the majority of researchers, you can appoint your own peers, and people from underprivileged universities and research institutes.

Just as it exists between scientists in economically developed countries and those in developed countries, the size of the gap between the haves and have-nots in science is thus In India, this corruption has led to the denial of awards and academies, as well as appointments to faculty, vice-chancellor, and trustee posts, based on the whims of the political parties that hold power in states and the Commonwealth. Spread in case of fellowship. government.

In science, the burden of proving your mettle begins with being able to get published in a fancy journal. situation in science. Again, there are obstacles for lay scientists who do not enjoy the support of a strong peer group, and as a result their goals are frustratingly out of reach. The group has also suffered a double blow: its members rarely have as much money as they do for their research. should have hadand in addition to this financial shortfall, they are also often in a position where they are expected to be paid to publish their discoveries.

The exorbitant “publication fees” charged by some scientific journals ultimately keep these researchers out of the fruits of their labor. Charging a fee for publication naturally drives poorly funded researchers to disrespectful journals, turning them into lesser children of God.

After analyzing a global sample of 4 million authors and 26 million scientific papers, a team of social scientists predicted in February 2021 that cumulative citations would increase from 14% to 21% between 2000 and 2015. reported that only the top 1% of scientists were able to increase The number of citations is the number of times your paper has been cited by other papers and is considered a signal of the usefulness of your paper. The concentration of citation growth among the top 1% of scientists only reflects the unfairness among scientists.

The same study also found that citations as an indicator are inherently skewed towards scientists in certain fields, women, people of color, and low-resource countries. An analysis published in December 2018, based on data from nearly 3,000 science awards and the career profiles of more than 10,000 winners, found that the awards were limited to a “relatively small group of scientific elites.” “Elite ties are highly clustered.” This also means that knowledge production pushing the boundaries of knowledge is confined to a small group of scholars.

obviously knowledge production itself It cannot be restricted. What is limited here is what scientists generally consider valuable knowledge. And research shows that the way they draw the line excludes the majority of the world’s knowledge producers from their proper recognition and support.

Critics have characterized the widening gap between the rich and poor in science using metaphors that refer to passages of Scripture. even what he has will be taken. ” This is known as the Matthew effect. In the present context, those who have reached the upper echelons of scientific power and prestige receive disproportionately more recognition than lesser-known scientists, even if the latter made equal or more significant contributions. It means to continue.

Therefore, elitism by default supports those who are already positioned on the exclusive island of excellence. , are free to perpetuate their early successes by acquiring more financial resources. late in their careerArticles published in magazines chemistry In May 2014, we called this a “winner-take-all market.”

Such elitism works even in the case of the Nobel Prize, with the prejudices inherent in white male scientists. Women and non-whites make up only about 1% of Nobel Prize winners, mostly in the fields of literature, peace and economics. Many other science awards are modeled after the Nobel Prize in their selection criteria, thus perpetuating the elitism and attendant myths.

One of them is “Lonely Genius”. This is an idea that contradicts the modern notion of science as a collaborative enterprise involving teams of individuals with diverse expertise. In fact, community approaches to science are becoming more common, and non-professionals participate in research. Thanks to social media, researchers from aeronautical biologists to enzymologists have access to interested members of the public as contributing partners.

However, these awards underestimate the contributions of multiple collaborators, including early-career scientists who stand to derive more from such recognition by honoring a single individual or few. Over time, all these awards will inevitably become cumbersome and intimidating for ordinary, potentially worthy scientists without the support of an influential mentor. not.

Requiring nominations and references is an important reason the pool of candidates remains limited. Unless conscientious efforts are made to change this and other similar norms, nominees and institutional biases will come to determine who gets what. It is even more important in India given the ideological diversity, and the systemic prejudices that persist along these lines. We also need to see how the awarding body can structure a socially and intellectually representative selection committee.

Some might argue that what we perceive as injustice in science is actually the disparity that motivates scientists to generate greater insights and breakthroughs. Hmm. So, as a profession like sports, it’s not the “external factors” like gender, race, nationality, region, caste that matter in science, but merit. If so, you may miss an important point. For any sport to be fair, it needs a level playing field where everyone has a fair and equal chance of success.

This same realization has prompted some organizations to start reforming. The Institute of Physics now encourages self-nominations for awards. Graduate students and engineers are also in contention, as the Royal Society of Chemistry has begun to emphasize science rather than individual scientists. The American Geophysical Union convened a task force in 2017 to correct the underrepresentation of women and minorities in fellowships.

Three science academies and several scientific societies in India have learned from similar initiatives to explore the issue of inequality and elitism in science and whether rewards and fellowships are actually being distributed in a more representative way. It’s time to ask.

Compensation systems should incorporate transparency and accountability. In response to the trend that decisions made behind closed doors are not in the interest of science, members of professional societies challenge their own stereotypes and feudalistic ideas within their communities. , must be encouraged to become more democratic. David Guston, now a professor of political science at Arizona State University, wrote in 2004:

“Democratizing science does not mean solving problems of nature by referendum, but democratizing politics means setting the prime ministerial rate by referendum. It is the same: democratizing in science means creating institutions and practices that fully incorporate the principles of accessibility, transparency and accountability.”

CP Rajendran is Adjunct Professor at the National Institute for Advanced Study, Bangalore. The views expressed here are those of the author.