Bias, misconduct cloud on blue-ribbon science institute Read more below

| | Published 29.08.18, 01:52 PM

New Delhi, April 29: Allegations of discrimination, academic misconduct and lack of transparency over dramatic differences in researchers’ salaries have tainted a 25-year-old international research centre here that is hailed for its excellence in science.

Indian and foreign scientists are trying to resolve what they say is a dual crisis gripping the New Delhi component of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB): loss of foreign funding and discontent among researchers.

India’s department of biotechnology and the Italian government have jointly funded the institution, where scientists have pursued advanced research initiatives on dengue, malaria and tuberculosis among other fields.

But Rome last year decided that it could no longer continue its contribution, and the ICGEB’s headquarters in Trieste, Italy, asked India to provide full support to the institution’s New Delhi component from 2014.

A panel of Indian scientists set up by the department of biotechnology is examining options to resolve the issue of future funding. ICGEB director-general Francisco Baralle from Italy is expected to meet department of biotechnology secretary Krishnaswamy VijayRaghavan and the research institution’s staff here on April 30.

But the meetings seem set to take place in an atmosphere that, many senior scientists familiar with the crisis say, provides a rare glimpse into how outstanding science can, at times, coexist with anger, frustration and rivalries.

“The level of accumulated discontent was quite surprising,” said Ananda Chakrabarty, Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and a member of the ICGEB’s council of scientific advisers (CSA), an international body of 15 eminent scientists.

Twenty-four of the 30 senior scientists at the ICGEB, New Delhi, have asked Baralle to remove the Delhi director, Virander Chauhan, correspondence between the scientists and Baralle between September 2012 and February 2013 shows.

Also, a grievance committee report from within the ICGEB shows that two former researchers have complained that a senior scientist at the institution, Kanury Venkata Subba Rao, denied them authorship on a research paper.

Both Chauhan and Rao have denied any wrongdoing.

The 24 aggrieved scientists have claimed in their letters to Baralle and the department of biotechnology that Chauhan’s lack of transparency in core budget distribution, exercise of arbitrary power over recruitment and promotions, and personal discrimination have humiliated scientists and hurt the functioning of the institution.

The CSA had heard similar complaints against the director in October 2012 and requested Baralle to carry out a formal review of Chauhan’s performance. In an email, Baralle declined to respond to queries from The Telegraph, saying he had told the scientists whatever he had to say.

Chauhan, an internationally respected scientist, said the complaints against him were false. He said the uncertainty over the future of the ICGEB, New Delhi, may have stirred some anxiety among a section of scientists and prompted some of them to write the letters.

In one letter sent to the department of biotechnology last year, scientists complained that Chauhan’s “opaque and random performance evaluations of scientific staff have severely hampered the growth overall and helped create a negative working environment”.

The CSA was told that scientists had experienced discrimination on issues such as budget allocation for laboratory consumables and travel.

Department of biotechnology secretary VijayRaghavan told this newspaper that the dissatisfaction among the ICGEB scientists and the CSA’s proposal for a review of the director’s performance were an internal matter for the institution, with no role yet for his department.

Some of the discontent appears to stem from differences in the salaries of scientists. The ICGEB has a two-tier pay structure — an international scale where a post-doctoral scientist could start at Rs 150,000 per month, paid in US dollars, and a national scale where a similarly qualified scientist would begin at about Rs 75,000 a month.

“The original idea at the ICGEB’s creation in 1988 was to draw the best from international faculty,” said a senior Indian scientist involved in the efforts to resolve the crisis.

“But all the 10 international-grade scientists’ positions there are now held by Indians. There seems to be discord now because sections of scientists feel there should not be huge salary differences between similarly performing and similarly qualified researchers.”

The ICGEB, New Delhi, had a core budget of about Rs 28 crore this year, of which about Rs 13 crore came from the department of biotechnology and the equivalent of Rs 15 crore from Italy. The panel set up by the department of biotechnology that is examining funding options is also expected to discuss the future pay structure at the research institution, VijayRaghavan said.

Another key question is whether the ICGEB should retain its international status or turn into an Indian government lab under the department of biotechnology.

While senior scientists debated these issues, two young researchers complained to the department of biotechnology earlier this year that Rao had denied them authorship on a research paper despite their significant contribution to the research effort.

Rao told an internal grievance committee set up by Chauhan that he did not think it appropriate to grant authorships to people who had been involved only in one aspect of the study — tissue generation. He added that both researchers had been acknowledged in the paper.

Rao said there was nothing unethical about his decision.

“I’ve let my junior post-doctoral colleagues become corresponding authors in manuscripts. I could have been overgenerous here, but the role of the people who really contributed to this paper would have been diluted,” he told this newspaper.

In its final report, submitted in November 2012, the grievance committee had noted that the two young scientists had “spent significant efforts” on tissue generation and “as team leader, Dr Rao should seriously consider including them as co-authors on the paper”.

Chauhan says the two complainants “grossly misrepresented the extent of their contribution to the paper” during their discussions with the committee.

“It was later established with corroborating evidence that the only contribution of these individuals to the study was in couriering the relevant tissue samples from Bangalore to Delhi,” he said.

But researchers not connected with the case say it would be strange if two post-doctoral scientists were used only to courier tissue samples from one city to another when there are professional agencies to transport biological samples.

Sources say an independent external committee is likely to examine the allegation.

“It is sad to learn about such happenings,” said Chakrabarty from Chicago. “The ICGEB is known for its great science. Among its other research achievements, it has contributed to better understanding of the mechanisms underlying malaria and tuberculosis infections and the processes through which plants tolerate environmental stress.”