Following the recognition they have received in the recent Union budget, almost everyone at the Indian Institute of Science knows they are carrying an increased responsibility.

Working within a system where science education is on the decline; where research has almost vanished from the universities; where the best talent cannot be paid well enough, IISc has a huge task on hand to live up to expectations.

Director Goverdhan Mehta himself is among the first to accept the fact that the challenge is huge, but not impossible. Speaking at an award ceremony for distinguished alumni, days after the budget allocation, Mehta said IISc has to live up to the faith reposed in it by the country.

“In the years to come, IISc should be known as an International Institute of Science. It should strive to become one of the top 10 or 15 institutions in the world,” Mehta told the Times of India.

“The nation has put its faith in the institute and in science. The institute now has to go to the next level,” says Ajay K Sood, divisional chairman for Physics and Mathematics.

To go to the next level and maintain its ‘world class institution’ label, IISc, apart from keeping its own house in order, will also have to contribute to the country’s university system — the catchment for the human raw material for high-end research.

Now that IISc has established itself as a world class institute, it must contribute to the development of science in the universities in the country, says IISc Distinguished Alumni Award winner and Italy-based researcher K.R. Sreenivasan.

“We need a university system that is vibrant and productive to attract good people but there is very little in the university system to attract talent today other than just providing employment,” agrees Mehta.

Attracting world class faculty to teach at IISc and aligning itself with international institutions is incidentally another key task ahead.

In recent times, foreign-based Indian science faculty have shown a keenness to return to teach at IISc, but this has largely been in non-exerimental areas, says chairman of the mathematics department G. Rangarajan.

To attract more experimental scientists to relocate their research and teach at IISc, the institute will have to provide the hi-tech laboratory set-up that scientists are used to in developed countries. Young Indian researchers who have made the return to India in recent times to set up laboratories for cutting-edge research at institutions often complain about the amount of time it takes to establish a lab here.