Centre for Research and Development

Research and innovation are the crucial parameters for the growth and sustainability of a large economy and for upliftment of the society. The rapid changes in climate, technology and population dynamics are making a robust research system more important than ever. There are multiple ways by which research and innovation at universities and colleges in all academic disciplines across the country can be catalyzed. In this context, the Research & Development (R & D) Centre of Sushant University facilitates and encourages research culture among the faculty members and students. Its major role is to create a conducive environment for promotion of Research & Innovation activities in the university. It enables an affable environment for technological development and monitors the research activities of the University. It undertakes various initiatives such us, writing proposals to government and outside agencies for new projects, conducting technical programmes for faculty members and students, building multidisciplinary research teams across the Schools, generate funds through sponsored projects, facilitate internationalization in research etc. The R & D Centre aims to collaborate with other research organizations at national and international level and helps the University stand out in global map.

Roles & Responsibilities of R & D Centre

•  To develop an eco-system to foster interdisciplinary research collaborations - within the faculty, across faculty and institutes, and with agencies outside the University
• Identification of innovative and thrust areas of research in each School
•  To encourage and motivate faculty members to undertake research projects and to scrutinize the proposals before submitting to funding agencies
•  Advise and arrange Seminars/Conferences/Workshops/Trainings/Faculty development programmes/Entrepreneurship development programmes at national or international level
•  Review the progress of research and offer necessary guidance whenever required
•  Provide need based financial support for research activities
•  Identify various organizations/industries/institutes to undertake collaborative research on current topics of common interest
•  Monitor and assess the progress of sponsored research projects.
•  Establish technology incubation centres/Research centres/Centres of excellence
•  To provide assistance for publishing high quality indexed papers in national & international journals/patenting/product generation/solve societal problems in collaboration with faculties from other institutes or organizations
•   Assistance in resource mobilization through industry interaction, consultancy and Extramural funding

Research Policies and Guidelines

Research-Promotion-&-Incentive-Policy.pdf

Introduction

Rapid growth in scientific discovery is essential for economic and societal development. Apart from transmission of knowledge, conduct of research activities are central functions of Sushant University which is also evident from its mission -:

• Transform lives and communities through education and research
• Achieve excellence through participatory governance and focus on quality research and innovation
• Attract talent through international partnerships and collaborations to achieve highest standards
• Facilitate learning through student centric and empathetic approach
• Develop thought leadership with industry integration

Overview

The senate of academic council of Sushant University hereby affirms the following principles concerning research:

1. Faculty members, PhD Scholars, JRFs, SRFs will be free to select the area of their research. They have freedom to construct their research findings, and conclusions. However, should make these available for discussion/scrutiny as and when required by the university.
2. Profession ethics related to research should be followed. Before conducting any study involving human subjects, approval from respective School Doctoral Committee should be taken.
3. SU is committed to provide support in terms of facilities funds etc (wherever possible due to limited resources) to create conducive environment for research.

 Responsibilities

This section outlines the responsibilities of faculty members, research scholars and students in conduct of research. The main points are as follows:

1. The head of lab/Principal Investigator (PI) has to ensure that all the members of his/her team are properly trained about health and safety procedures for respective area of research. PI to ensure that periodic inspection of lab is carried out and a report is shared with Honble Vice Chancellor and Registrar.
2. Faculty members also need to ensure that approved research protocols for the use of human and animal subjects in research are obtained and followed.
3. Despite the fact that the legal agreement funding of a sponsored project is between the sponsor and Sushant University, the overall management of the project is responsibility of PI. Expenditure must be limited to the available funds in the project. In any circumstances if there is an overdraft, it will be the responsibility of the PI to clear the dues.
4. It is the responsibility of PI to submit utilization certificate to sponsoring authorities within expected timelines.
5. PI should follow the procedure of purchase committee while procuring equipment or any other item related to their research.
6. Before submitting a proposal of project for funding to external agency, it should be cleared through “Ethics Committee” of the Sushant University.
7. All the researchers, including PhD students, Faculty members, students etc should use SU’s affiliation in publications (research papers, book chapters, books etc)
8. All the researchers, including PhD students, Faculty members, students etc must abide by SU’s patent and copyright agreement (Annexure-1)
9. All the researchers, including PhD students, Faculty members, students etc must comply to SU’s (UGC’s) policy on “Academic integrity and prevention of plagiarism” (Annexure-2)
10. All the PhD scholars and supervisors must comply to SU’s PhD ordinance 

Schemes related to promotion of research

To achieve missions of excellence in research, the SU institutes following awards and schemes

Seed funding for research: - Seed money of upto 3 Lakhs to faculty members for pursuing their research work. This will be done by submitting the proposal to VC through SRC (School Research Committee) who will further constitute a committee for evaluating the proposal. This proposal can be submitted throughout the year. The proposal should include – need of the work, objective, financial details, methodology etc.

Research Paper Awards: -

1. For papers in journals with impact factor more than 5, award (gift vouchers worth rupees 20,000/-) apart from due credits in the performance appraisal system. The faculty member will also be felicitated with a citation and memento.
2. For papers in journals with impact factor more than 3, award (gift vouchers worth rupees 15,000/-) apart from due credits in the performance appraisal system. The faculty member will also be felicitated with a citation and memento.
3. For papers in journals with impact factor more than 1, award (gift vouchers worth rupees 10,000/-) apart from due credits in the performance appraisal system. The faculty member will also be felicitated with an appreciation letter.

Best Researcher Awards: -

(Area funding) Will be given to faculty member who have got highest funding in the last completed academic year. This includes an award (gift vouchers worth rupees 30,000/-) apart from due credits in the performance appraisal system. The faculty member will also be felicitated with a citation and memento.

(Area recognition) Will be given to faculty member/s who have earned any National or International recognition (Awards/Fellowship). This includes an award (gift vouchers worth rupees 30,000/-) apart from due credits in the performance appraisal system. The faculty member will also be felicitated with a citation and memento.

GUIDELINES FOR ETHICS IN RESEARCH

Research at any institution should bring innovation, creativity and creation of new knowledge/ideas without compromising on the ethical practices/academic integrity. Research that is being carried out should have societal/environmental impact and should not be done just for the sake of publishing. Recently, there has been an increase in number of publications in dubious/predatory journals in India. Hence, there is a need to frame these guidelines to make the researchers aware of the ethical practices to be followed while doing research at Sushant University

Guidelines suggested by several Government agencies (Sources 1 & 2) have provided a basis for the preparation of the below guidelines for the Sushant University.

1. Conduct of Research 

While conducting research, whether independently or jointly, it is necessary to ensure that data collected (including raw data) are reliable, properly recorded and dated, and carefully stored. Fabrication and falsification of data, even data that may be perceived to be of relatively lower importance to the research outcome, clearly constitute scientific misconduct. The procedure followed should be described in sufficient detail to permit independent verification. Selective use of data without scientifically valid reasons is unacceptable. Not following the above guidelines on data collection can lead to scientific misconduct. 

• 1.1 Scientific Misconduct 

Scientific misconduct is the violation of the codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behaviour in the publication of professional scientific research. These include all acts from the initiation of an idea, its experimental verification, accuracy of results, accurate reporting without resorting to any malpractice in the presentation of data/images, due acknowledgement of all sources of information and people. Scientific misconduct(s) can be of various types and can occur at various stages-from the initiation of the scientific study to publications and/or patent generation. While these involve violation of generally accepted research practices, inadvertent errors or genuine differences in interpretation or judgement in assessment of the results may not constitute scientific misconduct. Scientific misconduct may be categorized into the following: 

• Embezzlement of ideas: Claiming an idea to be one’s own while it was obtained from privileged access while reviewing manuscripts, grant proposals or through participation in lectures and personal discussions and earlier publications (but not citing them). This also includes acts wherein ideas of others are presented as one’s own through slight changes of words, phrases and illustrations.
• Plagiarism: Using other’s words, results, or published work without appropriate citation. This includes using one’s own published work (self-plagiarism) without appropriate disclosure/citations.
• Falsification: Misrepresentation or suppression/ addition of a part of data to generate cherry picked results or improper reporting of results in order to present a misleading outcome.
• Fabrication: Reporting ‘results’ of experiments which were never done. This also includes images/ photographs being morphed to reach a particular interpretation.
• Fraud: Deliberate suppression of previous work in publications and inappropriately claim originality and/or avoiding quoting previous publications which are contrary to present results.
• Non-compliance of Regulatory Guidelines: Deliberate violation of ethical guidelines accepted for scientific research, non-adherence to safety regulations or inappropriate use of research funds.
• Inappropriate Authorship: Excluding genuine contributors from authorship, including non-contributors, or claiming authorship for oneself without having made any meaningful contribution is inappropriate. In cases of publication of work carried out during a Ph.D. thesis, due care should be taken by the thesis Supervisor to ensure that the scientific contributions of a student are neither diluted nor exaggerated.
• Withholding data from Validation: Not providing data or research material to the institute/journal for verification/validation purpose.
• Wrong versus Fraudulent paper: It occasionally happens that a conclusion drawn in an earlier publication is negated, modified or shown where it went wrong- either by the same author or others. This is how science progresses. The earlier paper is thus not fraudulent. 

2. Good Research Practices 

2.1 Laboratory Records: It is vital to keep proper records of each experiment, details of materials obtained from varied sources and how they were used, procedures, analysis and other related material. Graphs and printouts from instruments should be numbered and filed appropriately. If any software is used for handling and analysing the data, its name, version and other details should be recorded. The laboratory records of experiments carried out using a publicly funded institution should carry every single detail of the experiment. Such records are the property of the laboratory and are to be kept for archival and later retrieval purposes; a copy will of course be that of the researcher and can be used by anyone till after a defined moratorium period of 18 months. Due permission and acknowledgement of the researchers who carried out the experiments is essential at all times.

2.2 Consultancy work: External consultation should be done with explicit permission from the Institutional Head where the scientist/technologist works. At the same time, permissions, if denied, should be justified and the reasons thereof be formally recorded. If the facilities of the institution are used, the details should be declared and recorded with due confidentiality in terms of the interest of the client. A clear statement on the resources to be used and finances that would accrue to the consultant and the institution should be recorded ab initio.

2.3 Project grants and awards Project proposals, as well as selection of candidates for awards and fellowships, are usually evaluated by committees with the help of peer review. It is important that the highest ethical standards are observed by committee members. Both positive and negative bias, due to one's personal position, role or involvement, are inappropriate. 

3. Publication 

3.1 Authorship: The authorship of scientific publications is a very important issue since it is the way in which scientists receive credit for their contributions. All listed authors of a publication should have contributed significantly to it. It is inappropriate to offer 'guest authorship' to anyone who has not made a significant contribution. Likewise, it is wrong to exclude from authorship anyone who deserves to be an author. It is unethical to include anyone as an author of a paper without their knowledge and clear consent. The order of authorship is very important. In this matter, conventions vary in different fields, and in general, one should be consistent with the conventions in the field and the criteria laid down by the journal to which the work is submitted.

3.2 Plagiarism: The Oxford English Dictionary defines plagiarism as 'the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own'. In the context of scientific research, it can involve unattributed lifting of textual material or scientific ideas or actual research results. The most extreme example would be a deliberate attempt to pass off someone else's entire research project as one's own. However, it can also involve (deliberate or unintentional) incorporation of some ideas or results of other researchers, without proper attribution, within one's own research publication. Though the degree of severity can vary, plagiarism always amounts to ethical misconduct. Use of someone else's work in one's own is not by itself unethical. A limited amount of textual material in someone else's paper can be copied if it is clearly marked as a quote (typically by enclosing it within quotation marks) and the source is explicitly cited where the quote starts or ends. Alternatively, text may be paraphrased with a general indication of where the concepts originated. Occasional re-ordering or substituting of words is not sufficient to count as paraphrasing: the recommended procedure is to read and understand the source material, and then to put it away and express the idea in one's own words. Besides textual material, incorporation of ideas, figures, graphs, etc. from other sources in a manner that conveys a false impression that they are original amounts to plagiarism. Taking one's own published results and reproducing them in another published work as if they were new is 'self-plagiarism'. 'Duplicate publication' – submitting the same research results to two or more journals and treating them as separate publications – is also a form of self-plagiarism and must be avoided. Plagiarism is an issue not only for publications in journals but also for reports, textbooks, monographs and grant proposals. The above considerations apply equally in all these cases.

 3.3 Redundant /Salami Publications: Resorting to ‘Redundant’ publications for artificial enhancement of the number of publications is also a serious act of misconduct. Also, the simultaneous submission of the same manuscript in multiple journals, in order to have one of them accepts it, is gross misconduct.

3.4 Responsibility of Reviewers: Scientists who are asked to review a manuscript or a research proposal have the responsibility to ensure they do not misuse their advance access to the information and ideas in these documents. The use of such advance access to publish a competing work, or to carry out research that pre-empts a proposed project is unethical.

3.5 Peer review: Scientists often act as referees in review of manuscripts submitted for publication as well as project proposals submitted for financial support. This exercise should be carried out with the maximum possible objectivity. It is essential to avoid personal bias and/or conflicts of interest. 

4. Dealing with Misconduct 

A University level Committee on Ethics called the Ethical Committee, involving people at different levels (scientific and administrative) have been established. Scientific misconducts would be investigated by the Ethical committee and the recommendations would be made to the Vice-Chancellor by the chairperson of the committee. 

References 

1. University Grants Commission (Promotion of Academic Institution and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulation, 2018.The Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part III-Section 4, July 31, 2018.
2. Our Core Practices”, Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE), 1999.
3. Williams C. L. et al., Errors, Sloppy Science and Fraud: Keeping Eyes on Your Data. J. Clin Invest 2019: 129(5): 1805- 07. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI128380. 

Sources 

1. https://www.ias.ac.in/About_IASc/Scientific_Values:_Ethical_Guidelines_And_Procedures/
2. “Draft National Policy on Academic Ethics”, Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, 11-6-2019.

Patents

PhD Programme

Govt. Grants

Consultancy

Central Instrumentation Facility

The instruments available at Sushant University are being used by members of the University as well as researchers from other institutes also. 

List of Instrumentation facilities available:

UV-Visible spectrophotometer, 

Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrophotometer, 

Centrifuge machine, 

Ultrasonicator, 

Distillation system, 

Vertical Autoclave, 

Laminar air Flow, 

BOD INCUBATOR, 

Hot Air Oven, 

Muffle Furnace, 

Zone reader, 

Colony Counter, 

Photoflourimeter, 

Auto pH meter,

Bottle filling machine 

Anion-Cation Exchanger

Conductivity meter, 

Vacuum Pump, 

Bulk Density Apparatus, 

Dissolution rate test apparatus 

Digital Sieve Shaker

Water Bath

Ball Mill

Innovation Centre

Research Journals

Workshop on "Importance and Requirements for filing a Patent"

Lateral Entry / Migration