The programme of Presidential Awards for Research was started in year 2001, to honour scientists for reaching international standards, to increase national scientific production and to stem brain drain. The national statistics of output of publications from 1991 to 2006 shows what could perhaps be the beginning of an upward trend.

The entire scheme is based on the Science Citation Index (SCI). SCI is a database of the world’s scientific periodicals judged to be the topmost by its publisher, with respect to quality and impact on science. Thus the SCI analyses about 3700 periodicals containing a world total of about 1,2000,000 titles of articles, in a given year.

The compilation done for the Research Award scheme covers all the “hard science” titles (excluded the social science) with a Sri Lankan address against at least one author as given in the SCI.

To date we have completed three programmes covering publications listed in SCI 1999, SCI 2000 and SCI 2001.

Current programme : The Presidential Awards for Research 2003-2004 : Date to be announced