Meghalaya Governor Satya Pal Malik on Monday said the quality of research has "gone down" in Indian institutes and universities because of lack of collaborations. He said this will addressing a function of the North Eastern Hill Univesity (NEHU) where nine agreements were signed by the university with various educational institutes and business houses across the country.

"The quality of research has gone down in Indian Institutes and Universities. Because of lack of collaborations, the growth is not being observed in these important institutions," Governor Malik said.

"When a university of repute does not do research work, the value of the university goes down," the governor said. He said government should spend more on education. The North-Eastern Hill University signed MoUs with nine institutions of academic excellence across the country to address the quality of higher education and researches.

NEHU Vice-Chancellor Prabha Shankar Shukla said the MoUs will provide ample scope for NEHU as well as the participating institutes and industries to collaborate in cutting edge technologies to bring about change in academia and way of doing research.

"The signing of this Memorandum of Understanding and Exchange Agreement in between our two institutions today symbolizes a partnership which we believe will lead to many new joint research initiatives that produce new synergies, and add academic value for both NEHU and all these other prestigious universities, institutes and industries," he said.

MoU Committee chairman Anand S Dixit said he was delighted to see the day as MoUs are signed on Teachers' Day and the Golden Jubilee Year of NEHU. The nine institutes include the Lucknow-based CSIR- National Botanical Research Institute, Institute of Toxicology Research, GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Shillong-based Sawaiom Fresh and TURBIT, New Delhi-based National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), Golden Signatures Research and Consulting and the Meerut -based JDBP Agri International Pvt Ltd, Faridabad-based Regional Centre for Biotechnology.

The various aspects of the MoUs signed included research collaborations ranging from Biotechnology, Environmental Science, Pharmacology, Genetics, Plant Breeding, Agricultural Sciences, Plant Conservation, Agro-technologies, Food, Drug, Chemical, Computational and Regulatory Toxicology together with Health Toxicology Assessments besides industrial collaborations, he said.