RA Mashelkar earned his B Chem Engg degree (1966) from UDCT (now University Institue of Chemical Technology, UICT), after which he obtained his PhD (1969) from the University of Bombay. He studied and worked in the UK, (1969-76), first as Leverhume Research Fellow and later as Lecturer in the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Salford. On returning to India in 1976, Mashelkar joined the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune of CSIR eventually becoming its Director (1989-95). In 1995, he took over as the Director General of CSIR and held this position till his retirement in 2006.

Academic and Research Achievements: Mashelkar has made path breaking scientific contributions in transport phenomena and in thermodynamics of swelling, superswelling and shrinking polymers, modeling of polymerisation reactors, and engineering analysis of non-Newtonian flows. As Director, NCL, Mashelkar gave a new orientation to NCL's research programmes with strong emphasis on globally competitive technologies and international patenting and NCL began exporting its knowledge even to Europe and USA, the first Indian laboratory to do so. Mashelkar also created a polymer science and engineering division from scratch in NCL, rated as world class today. He has 240 research publications and has edited / authored 22 books in the field of Chemical Engineering and allied areas. He has 28 patents to his credit.

Other Contributions: Mashelkar conceived and successfully led the process of transformation of CSIR. His white paper "CSIR 2001: Vision & Strategy" set up a new agenda to draw out a corporate like R&D and business plan for a publicly funded R&D institution. Dr Mashelkar has been propagating a culture of innovation and balanced intellectual property rights regime for over a decade. It was through his sustained and visionary campaign that growing awareness of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) has dawned on Indian academics, researches and corporates. He spearheaded the successful challenge to the US patent on the use of turmeric for wound healing and also the patent on Basmati rice. These landmark cases have set up new paradigms in the protection of India's traditional knowledge base, besides leading to the setting up of India's first Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL). In turn, at an international level, this has led to the initiation of the change of the International Patent Classification System to give traditional knowledge its rightful place. He was Chairman, Standing Committee on Information Technology of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); Member, International IPR Commission of UK Government; and Vice-Chairman on Commission in IPR, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH) set up by WHO.

Awards and Honours: Dr Mashelkar is a recipient of number of awards and honours which include: SS Bhatnagar Prize (1982); Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Technology Award (1991); Padma Shri (1991); GD Birla Scientific Research Award (1993); Padma Bhushan (2000); Viswakarma Medal (1988) and SS Bhatnagar Medal (2001) and Jaw