In most universities, research begins with a simple spark of curiosity; a question, an observation, a desire to understand the world more deeply.
That spark was alive when I found myself speaking with a professor recently. What struck me first was her enthusiasm. She didn’t just talk about research as a formal process; she spoke of it as something living, something students should feel, question, and experience. She made me realise that research isn’t just something to imagine, it’s something I can actively be a part of.
But as our conversation moved forward, another layer surfaced, one that didn’t come from lack of passion, but from the limitations wrapped around her.
The moment she described the working conditions inside our laboratories, the excitement met a sobering reality. Despite years of recognition, rankings, and promises, Lucknow University’s laboratories still struggle with the same long-standing issues. Even after the university was awarded a major grant under the Pradhan Mantri Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (PM-USHA), a scheme meant to strengthen infrastructure and support multidisciplinary research, the everyday challenges inside many labs remain unchanged. Grants arrive late or inconsistently, and instruments break down without institutional servicing.
At one point, she mentioned a fact that reveals the scale of the problem clearly: setting up a single experiment can cost around 4 to 5 lakhs. Not an entire laboratory, just one experiment.
Even basic infrastructures, like the 22 air conditioners in her lab, often end up needing personal intervention and money just to keep functioning.
Our conversation then drifted toward her experiences abroad in the US and the UK where higher education is expensive and pursued with intention. There, not everyone enters postgraduate study; only those who truly want to immerse themselves in research choose to go forward. But here, when she asks her MSc and PhD students why they are studying further, the answer has become almost identical: “I want to be an assistant professor.”
The ambition is respectable. Yet the shrinking of motivations reveals something worrying: we are producing degrees faster than we are producing thinkers.
This is not a critique of teachers who, often against all odds, do everything they can with what they have.
It is a question directed at the authorities, policymakers, and funding bodies.
If research is truly a national priority, why do so many of our labs still look and function as they did years ago?
Where are the funds, and when will they finally reach the people who keep the system alive?