National Research Council of Sri Lanka
The National Research Council of Sri Lanka (NRC) is a national funding agency of Sri Lanka, that provides financial assistance to the public sector scientists of the country. It has established as a statutory body by the Act of parliament in 2016 by the Parliament of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, aiming to facilitate research relating to science and technology in order to build a vibrant scientific and technological community in the country, to promote and facilitate research relating to science and technology in higher educational institutions and public sector research institutes  and other governmental institutes so as to develop a research base that will contribute to national needs and to solicit the co-operation of the private sector in the enhancement of research relating to science and technology. The National Research Council of Sri Lanka is an institute under the purview of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Research. History. The National Research Council of Sri Lanka (NRC) was founded by the President Chandrika Kumaratunga on 20 April 1999 and Prof. Aries Kovoor was appointed as the founder Chairman. In July 2007, the President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, issued a warrant formalizing the  establishment of the National Research Council as a Special Agency, exercising the powers vested in him by Article 33 of the Constitution, and Prof. Eric Karunanayake was appointed as the Chairman. Prof. Janaka de Silva represented National Research Council since its inception and he was appointed as the Chairman to the National Research Council by the President Mahinda Rajapakse by the presidential directive dated 9 September 2013. Under the leadership of Prof. Janaka de Silva, the NRC established as a statutory body by the Act of parliament in 2016. Leadership. The Chairman of the National Research Council, currently Prof. Hemantha  Dodampahala, is responsible for chairing the meetings of the Council (Boards of Directors) and for overall management of the Council. He is Consultant Obstetrician & Gynecologist at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. Before January 2020 the institution was chaired by Prof. Janaka de Silva. List of Council Members. The Council (Boards of Directors) consists of the Chairman, 9 Council Members, Ministry Representative and Treasury Representative. Grants. Target Oriented Multidisciplinary Research Grants Isolated research is only rarely able to advance the understanding of, or solve complex problems. A multidisciplinary approach involves drawing appropriately from multiple disciplines to redefine problems outside  of normal boundaries and reach solutions based on a new understanding of difficult issues. This programme was started in 2013, aligned with the Ministry of Technology & Research, and proposed the Ten Thrust Areas on which R & D intervention are immediately needed. Pre-proposals were invited from groups of researchers in public scientific research and development organizations and universities. The Target-Oriented Multi-Disciplinary research projects were aimed at solving nationally relevant issues targeting economic development, social welfare, and environmental sustainability of the country. These projects will aim to address major gaps in knowledge for policy/strategy or product development, or  solving problems, which impede, or present a challenge to the nation. The path for translating research outcomes into policy, strategy, product/process development, and its uptake should be clearly identified. Proposals were invited from several priority areas associated with the National Research and Development Policy Report (Ten Thrust Areas) of the Ministry of Science Technology & Research. The value of a grant would be up to Rs. 50 million, over a 5-year period. As the NRC would invest a substantial sum of public money on these projects, funding would be on a highly competitive basis. NRC will select most appropriate  and capable researchers with the ability to work together as a team on projects that the NRC consider likely to have a tangible outcome in five years. These multi-centered projects will have the advantage of its team members working concurrently on different aspects of the research. Operation aspects of the grant will be identical to the Investigator Driven Grant. However, in addition to the Principal Investigator, a deputy leader will be appointed. Once the grant is provided, these projects will be regularly and rigorously scrutinized, monitored, and evaluated to ensure the achievement of stated outcomes. Investigator Driven Research Grants  The R&D activities in Sri Lanka are mainly conducted by public institutes and universities, and are funded from various sources such as government institutional funds, competitive grants and research contracts. The NRC Research Grants programme was initiated for scientists to conduct research with minimum bureaucracy. NRC Research Grants programme provides competitive grants to public institutes for R & D activities. This programme has been streamlined over years of its implementation and now is more or less perfected. The grants are advertised annually, evaluations are based on scientific aspects, relevance to national development, and the findings are published in international journals. The  applications undergo a strict evaluation process. For the proposals selected, the Council will decide on an appropriate allocation of funds that will be channeled from the Treasury, directly to the Principal Investigator, who will be solely responsible for project implementation. Funds are considered for equipment, consumables, etc. A bank account is opened for each project and the NRC monitors all transactions. This allows a considerable flexibility to scientists to utilize the funds with minimum red tape. The Council and the NRC Secretariat monitor and evaluate the process. It should be mentioned here that the present grants are diversified in nature . Other than funding research on pure science and on food, water, environment, and energy, the NRC has lately been funding research on national surveillance, irrigation systems, wildlife and ecotourism, speech translations, construction and architecture, railway traffic, sports and many other areas. A simple but comprehensive single set of applications are available for all programs. The number of applications NRC receives has increased over the years, which is a positive sign. Challenges for this programme are to assure the momentum that NRC has already achieved. The Council introduced many new regulations and guidelines to monitor and evaluate the progress of these  grants, in order to derive the best outputs from them. Public Private Partnership Programme Advances in R&D in Science and Technology (S&T) will pave the way to development of value-added products and services that are competitive in the global market, and which will form an essential pillar of Sri Lanka’s envisaged economic development. To accomplish this goal, research performed in Sri Lanka needs to be demand-driven by addressing the needs of key industries of the country, which are expected to drive the economy forward. The Public R&D Private Industry-Partnership (PPP) programme is to build on local  strength by networking key players in R&D activities and industries to contribute towards the economic development of the country. Promoting R&D in S&T should lead to economic development by way of increasing exports, diversifying exports, and promoting import substitutes. All innovative research leading to the development of new or better products, processes, services, value addition and solving technical problems with commercial potential will be considered for this programme. Meaningful partnerships between the different sectors will enable us to share our research expertise, cost, services and facilities more effectively to develop solutions for industry R&D needs. The partnerships will also improve  efficiency of public R&D activities and reduce the time horizon. The Private sector participation is encouraged by providing tax concessions in relation to R&D expenditure undertaken by an enterprise with public sector partnership. The NRC will interface between government - local institute - ministries - University - R&D Institutes - corporate sector - SME sector, in providing research-based solutions to national needs.   President’s Award for Scientific Research. The National Research Council is empowered to develop a system to recognize and grant awards for national research and innovation relating to science and technology. As awards are given only to the highest achieving scientists, the NRC  is required to regularly review and revise the selection criteria with a view of retaining their relevance and prestigious nature. Each award will be given for a published work rather than to an individual scientist, and all Sri Lankan co-authors with a Sri Lankan institutional affiliation of the publication will be recognized as recipients of the award. The journal ranking system (on the basis of which the best published scientific work will be selected) will be source normalized based on weighted citations to avoid bias towards any scientific disciplines, and will be available in the public domain. To encourage  research that is conceptualized and performed mainly in Sri Lanka, recognition will be given to research with a significant contribution by Sri Lankan scientists working in Sri Lanka. Awards will be also given for patents based on innovations in Science. To allow sufficient time for completeness of indexing and documentation (including retraction), the awards will be given two years after the year of publication of a paper or obtaining a patent (e.g., achievements in 2017 will be given awards in 2019). Each year, an award will be given to each of the top 100 papers published in journals with the  highest SCImago Journal Ranking (SJR), in which 20% or more of the authors of the publication are Sri Lankan scientists with a Sri Lankan institutional affiliation or to each International Patent (published/granted) based on an innovation in science awarded in a given year, to a Sri Lankan Scientist(s) with a Sri Lankan affiliation.