You are describing a recognition that research is important. A recognition that research distinguishes your efforts from those of others who are not involved in research. Your assets in India are indeed what you describe, a large patient base and a patient population that presents with dental disease. Putting all these factors together what you have is an ideal environment for the conduction of research then the question is what type of research should you be involved in? My understanding of the economic situation in India is that it is perhaps a little bit more polar than some other countries throughout the world. There is a large population of people who have great assets financially and there is a large population of patients who have very few assets. Dental research that is addressing a financially impoverished population may well identify a way to help a population in need while also evaluating methods of intervention that could benefit from large patient populations. You may not, at the earliest stages of research development, consider level I studies but level II, three, and four studies with large population bases are certainly valuable additions to the dental community.

Said another way I think that philosophically India would represent a great place to do research and then it becomes a question of what sort of research can be done that benefits your patient base.

As a journal editor, I would suggest to any individual who has either yet to publish or has only limited numbers of publications that the most important factor in creating a research publication is related to the following of the publication guidelines of the journal  to which you wish to submit. If an author follows those guidelines the article that is submitted will be evaluated only on the basis of the research rather than evaluating articles on the basis of compliance with guidelines. When you're thinking of conducting a project or writing  an article from a study that's already been completed it is certainly acceptable to send a letter directly to the editor of the Journal and ask them if they have printed guidelines for preparation of an article. Sometimes authors will find that editors have much more specific guidelines that can be shared. It certainly worth the email.

Dear,

In a recent paper, we described that India is, indeed, among top countries in the world for Dental Public Health Research (2005-2014) and it could be in Dentistry as well. I am not sure if this Indian publication we found concerns to an international audience or local issues (that could be of great value), but I am sure it is large.

Having a large amount of research is an important step in improving quality, but far from enough. In Scientometrics, it is well known the concept of "critical mass", that is, the number of very good PhDs needed to produce ONE very good published paper. In many areas of Dental Research, one PhD alone cannot carry out any good research, but we are not sure how many we need. Any country needs to achieve the minimum of critical mass to get good research. 

In Brazil, during the 90's, the government invested a lot in sending people abroad to high quality PhD's (and we struggled to avoid the "brain drain"). In the 2000's we were able to make increase the number of high quality of PhD courses with high quality research teams, at international reputation. Having good scientists is what you need to improve existing pattern of dental research. This is no easy task. :-(

I know some Indian researchers in Dental Public Health, but none is working in India, as far as I know. I do not know the reality of your country. Does India pay for people to study abroad? Does your country have scholarships to stimulate full-time PhD students? Does your country distribute research grants to research teams that were able to demonstrate they can achieve high standards goals? 

Article Half-century of Dental Public Health Research: Bibliometric ...

Thank you for the insights Steven E Eckert and Roger Keller Celeste.

Regards

Acknowledging the factors mentioned in the earlier comments, I would also add another factor here that is collaborative research. I say this because I was personally conducting research on dental implants at the Material Testing Laboratory, Departments of Material Science, IIT Bombay, a few years ago. The aim of the research among other things was to improve the mechanical strength of the dental implants to lend them longevity as well as making them cheaper by using newer materials. We were fortunate to be partnered by the local dental colleges in and around Mumbai; although, we had to struggle with a lot of dentists due to their inertia to participate in such research. They were not really enthused about the project primarily due to lack of mental bandwidth that a practising doctor can offer and also because research in India is unstructured. 

I would, therefore, say that more structured collaborative research is required which would not only enrich the field but ultimately benefit the patients too. 

Totally agree to Devasheesh here , multidisciplinary and collaborative research are the need of the hour, but we are so busy setting up a base to our career and bringing stability to our life that we often tend to cut this aspect out totally. 

Respected fellow Researchers, 

As we all know research is of paramount importance in order to improve mankind's ability to preserve and conserve humanity's health.

India being a nation of more than a billion people has both the challenge to keep oral health care affordable and reachable and the opportunity to contribute immensely to global research in a meaningful manner.

The number of colleges that our country has along with the thousands of postgraduate students actively doing their dissertations makes it a fertile ground for us to translate this into a research powerhouse.

But is that it, Why is dental research still not getting its due importance here and in other low income as well as developing countries ? and what can be done to bring it out from the shadows into the limelight ?

Please share you insights opinion and discussions regarding the same.

Regards