In any institution involved with teaching or working on scientific topics - like universities, R&D laboratories or major Government Laboratories - it is necessary to provide opportunities for people to carry on research activities. This fact was pointed out recently, in no uncertain terms, by the eminent astrophysicist Prof. Jayant Narlikar in his lecture to the Kerala Science Congress. Though the mandated work like “teaching, departmental work, project work”, etc., are to be done by the scientific staff in the institution, their intellectual capabilities will soon dry up if they restrict only to those tasks, because the human brain wants something new to stimulate it always. Science managers who ignore this point will be eventually destroying the institution.

I wrote this some years back. Scientific labs which followed a corporate structure might have realized the mistakes!
 

Some “physics-managers” stoop down to very low levels and insist that the only worthwhile work in physic is running some commercial computer codes. Their only aim is to make some PPTs that can be shown to impress higher level managers. What will be the fate of researchers in such a set up in few years? 

There is serious problem in doing any type of research in Government run labs. The so called project work that is pursued there is simply depended on ‘purchase and assemble’ technology, and type of research work is unsupported and discouraged to the extent possible as the ‘managers’ have to show their devotion to the hierarchy. 

It is not easy to study a new topic in physics. For that first of all it is necessary to dig through all the details of that field. However, continuing from there,  planning and doing something new is another matter. The tragedy is that there are people who will create problems for those attempting to do the latter because they have to cover up their incompetence. 

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