17th Science and Technology in Society (STS) Forum

• 05 Oct 2020

Why in News

India participated at the Science & Technology Ministerial Roundtable, organized in the 17^th annual Science and Technology in Society (STS) Forum.

Key Points

• Science & Technology Ministerial Roundtable:
  
  • Hosted by: Japan
  • Science and Technology Ministers' Roundtable is held along with the STS forum every year.
  • Major highlights:
    
    • Deliberated on the role of international R&D collaboration,
    • Social sciences & humanities,
    • Open science.
  • Participation: S&T heads from about 50 countries around the world participated and explored the opportunities arising from international collaborations at the Roundtable to address the challenges posed by Covid 19.
  • India highlighted initiatives by India regarding sharing of scientific data- National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy and an open government data portal.

Science and Technology in Society (STS) Forum

• The Science and Technology in Society (STS) forum was inaugurated in 2004.
• The STS forum aims:
  
  • To provide a new mechanism for open discussions on an informal basis.
  • To build a human network that would timely resolve the new types of problems stemming from the application of science and technology.
• It holds an annual meeting starting on the first Sunday of October every year, in Kyoto, Japan.

India’s Role in Global S&T Fraternity

• Scientific data sharing with partner nations is being considered for inclusion in the Science Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP 2020) being framed.
• International Cooperation: India gives extraordinary importance to international cooperation in S&T for development and for addressing challenges of health, water, energy, environment, climate change, communication, and natural disasters. Example:
  
  • India’s active S&T participation in international mega-science projects such as International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ITER, Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT).
  • Mission Innovation:
    
    • Mission Innovation (MI) was announced in 2015 due to pioneering efforts by India, France, and the USA to combat climate changes.
    • MI is a global initiative of 24 countries and the European Union to dramatically accelerate global clean energy innovation.
    • As part of the initiative, participating countries have committed to double their governments’ clean energy Research and Development (R&D) investments over five years.
    • Encouraging private sector investment in transformative clean energy technologies.
    • The Innovation Challenges cover the entire spectrum of RD&D; from early-stage research needs assessments to technology demonstration projects.
• India’s Global Initiatives:
  
  • Coalitions for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) - An international knowledge platform where countries can collaborate to make their existing and new infrastructure strong enough to withstand natural disasters.
  • International Solar Alliance - An Indian initiative that was launched in 2015 in Paris, France with the objective to collectively address key common challenges to the scaling up of solar energy in ISA member countries.
• For Covid-19: Vaccines for coronavirus are in advanced phases of trial, and India has the capacity to supply the vaccine to a major part of humanity.
  
  • This is in addition to other medicine requirements that global pharmacy(India) has provided during the pandemic.

National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy

• The NDSA was adopted in 2012.
• It was a step towards making non-sensitive government data accessible online.
• The main thrust of the policy is to “promote data sharing and enable access to Government of India owned data for national planning, development and awareness”.
• The implementation guidelines for NDSAP included ideals such as “openness, flexibility, transparency, quality” of data.
• It aims to facilitate “access to Government of India shareable data in machine-readable form”.
• The guidelines prescribe open digital formats suitable for analysis and dissemination.
• Open Government Data Portal: As part of the Open Government Data (OGD) initiative, data.gov.in was launched in 2012.

Source: PIB