Project on Science Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP 2020) initiated by Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India in association with Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia, New Delhi

Govt of India has initiated the Science Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP 2020) for engaging with a new perspective on how the nation addresses science, technology, and innovation. The core vision of STIP 2020 is the decentralization of policy designing by making it a bottom-up and inclusive process. It aims to realign priorities, sectoral focus and methods of research and technology development with the goals of larger socio-economic progress. Situated within this context is a participative model with four interconnected tracks that has been envisioned to formulate the STIP 2020. It is in Track 1 that the fundamental ethos of participatory democracy resides. Being led by the DST-Centre for Policy Research at Indian Institute of Science (DST-CPR- IISC) in Bangalore through its collaborative platform Science Policy Forum, this track has curated six unique national level initiatives that serve the dual purpose of outreach and data gathering. Through live virtual conversations with dynamic experts, thematic webinars, focused survey instruments, digital and print media campaigns and community radio broadcasters, Track 1 aims to generate a wide-ranging national engagement. 

Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA) has been engaged by DST to organize and coordinate the activities related to the above project particularly with Community Radio Broadcasters.  CEMCA, New Delhi is an inter-governmental organization, which is the only regional agency of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), implements COL's mandate in the eight countries of Commonwealth Asia.  CEMCA has been very closely associated with all aspects of the development of Community Radio in India, like Policy and Advocacy, Establishment of Community Radio Stations, Capacity Building for community engagement, and Station management as well as local content creation.

There are 289   Community Radio Station (CRS) in the Country.  For this project 25 Community Radio Stations has been identified. These CRS are from all the Regions (North, South, East, West and the North East) of the Country. The Audio Broadcast on the Policy has been provided by DST in various languages along with the Jingle. 

CRS have started broadcasting the programme from 1st August 2020.  Broadcast will continue till 30th September. Data will be collected in various formats from these CRS. Two Capacity Building Programmes of CRS has been conducted by CEMCA where representatives of DST participated. Few CRS have also started the Focus Group Discussion where CEMCA provided them with few Leading Questions.