Tata grant to IISc materialises five years after promise

 In line with industrialist Ratan Tata’s promise in the centenary year of IISc, 2009, that the Tatas would fund research with practical benefits and make a substantial grant to IISc, the Tata Trusts have extended a Rs 75 crore grant to IISc for research on Alzheimer’s disease.

IISc’s Centre for Neuroscience (CNS) will conduct a study to enable early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and develop appropriate treatment. The origin, rise and spread of the disease will be mapped.

The grant has come five years after the announcement owing to the difference in perception then, on areas to be researched between IISc and the Tatas. In 2009 and 2010, Ratan Tata on different occasions had said that the Tatas would support new research to mark the centenary of the Institute. But he had also specified that IISc needed to do more than what it had done so far.

Tata’s expectations

At a meeting of the Court, the highest decision making body of IISc, Tata had said, “If I look back on what I have been trying to say in a very polite and in a very careful manner, it has been my perception that this institute, which is a great institute, has not perhaps changed as much as one would like to see. I have mentioned that we should perhaps be looking at greater change, research of greater global relevance and I have used my words carefully.”

He had added, “I urge that all of us work together to make this possible in its true form where this institute not only files major number of patents compared to what it did before, not only pursues technical excitement or scientific excitement, but actually contributes to a new way of life both in India and elsewhere.”

He had also said that they had to ask themselves as any good institute would, if what they were doing was good and relevant enough and how they could improve.

The greatest danger we have or anyone has in any congregation is to say that we are at the pinnacle of where we can be and we can do no better, he said.

Practical benefits

Then again in a March 2011 meeting at IISc, Tata had said that the research must connect with the masses and have utilitarian value. Referring to the tsunami, he had suggested that research by institutes like IISc should be able to devise robust products that could help people during such crises. Tata wanted practical research with practical benefits.

In May 2011, difference in perception on research topics between IISc and Tatas had surfaced. IISc broadly proposed chemical biology, mathematics, energy and materials sciences.

The Tatas indicated interest in energy, materials and chemical biology, but, Mathematics didn’t excite them.

The Tatas and IISc spent a good deal of time discussing research on specific areas or on a series of areas - whether research should be specific or diffuse.

In a course of five years and several discussions on areas that needed to be researched, the Tatas finally decided that it would fund and support a specific issue - researching Alzheimer’s, so as to be able to work out early diagnosis and prevent its rise and spread. The decision was not taken earlier because there was no convergence of interests.

IISc director Prof P Balaram had then echoed Tata's sentiments on research. “Tata raised a general issue — where each one asks oneself whether one is doing as well as one should, whether institutions in general are doing as well as they should.

He said we could and will do a lot better.” Prof Balaram had said that the grant would come but that it could take time because of difference in perception areas of research to be funded.

Keen interest

The IISc director had said that the Tatas were keen on setting up a large research centre and facility at IISc and wanted it to be fresh, fruitful and cutting-edge, bring in new research.

He had added, “A lot of people and many aspirations have to be satisfied by this grant. Everyone taking a decision on the grant will have to feel confident the right areas have been chosen. I'm sure it'll be worth the wait in the end.”