Researchers across the country feel that there is an urgent need to create better awareness about the importance and relevance of writing scientific research papers among the pharmacy students in the country. This demand comes in the wake of growing unease among researchers due to lack of expertise and profound efficiency among the pharma research students in presenting good scientific paper, in spite of having good theme or research data.

Experts fear that if this issue is not addressed in time through requisite training sessions at the colleges, Indian researcher papers may have problems getting global acceptability, in spite of its huge scope. Raj Vaidya, community pharmacist points out that today there is a considerable lacunae in this area, that needs to be tapped and addressed so as to keep Indian researchers abreast about key skills involved in writing scientific research papers, especially that which deals with other practical applications involved in writing such papers.

It is understood that, today only handful of colleges or institutions in the country have any dedicated training or workshop, to teach and sensitise the students and researchers on writing scientific papers. “World is now becoming a global village, and under the changing market dynamics it is always best to keep  updated on the latest trend accepted worldwide. Considering the global phenomenon wherein, lot of stress is given by universities and colleges abroad to train their students on writing research paper, hardly any efforts have been taken by the Indian counterparts in this area, till now. Thus to keep our research standards at par with the international standard and to enable Indian researchers  to face these challenges it is essential to conduct training pogramme on such a crucial topic at colleges,” Vaidya stressed.

Interestingly, a workshop was held on  'science of scientific writing', on March 21 which was sponsored by AICTE. The purpose of the workshop was to keep researchers abreast about skills involved in writing scientific research papers and practical applications involved in writing such papers. The workshop was attended by 131 delegates comprising of teaching faculty and PG students from pharmacy colleges across Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The workshop was inaugurated by the chief guest, professor. V P Kamat, registrar, Goa University; Vivek Kamat, director, directorate of technical education, Salim Veljee, director, FDA, Dr S Y Gabhe, chairman, board of pharmaceutical education, AICTE and Arun Naik, chairman, management council of Goa College of Pharmacy. V P Kamat, registrar, Goa University appealed for better interdisciplinary research activities with university departments and offered the use of sophisticated instrumentation available in Goa University for research activities.