SARAL AI: Turning Research Papers into Bite‑Size Videos for Everyone

New Delhi – In a move that feels part‑tech launch, part education‑reform, the CSIR‑National Institute of Science Communication and Policy Research (CSIR‑NIScPR) announced it will start using SARAL AI, a tool born out of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF). The goal? To take dense research papers and magically turn them into short, snappy videos anyone can understand.

“Research shouldn’t die on the page,” said Dr. Shivkumar Kalyanaraman, CEO of ANRF, during a recent visit to the institute. He walked the team through how SARAL AI pulls key ideas, graphics and data from a paper and stitches them together into a visual story – a process that usually takes weeks, now done in minutes.

The push aligns with the government’s broader push for emerging technologies in science outreach. Earlier this month, Minister of State for Science and Technology (Independent Charge), Dr. Jitendra Singh, urged research bodies to adopt such tools, noting they “bridge the gap between scholars and the rest of society.”

Leading the charge at NIScPR is Director Dr. Geetha Vani Rayasam. Under her guidance, the institute has been flirting with digital platforms for years, but SARAL AI feels like the missing puzzle piece. “We’ve always believed that good science belongs to everyone,” she remarked, “and now we finally have a way to spread it beyond the journal shelves.”

To get hands‑on experience, NIScPR organized a workshop that drew more than 90 participants – journal editors, early‑career researchers, even a couple of enthusiastic undergraduates. Attendees tried the platform, tweaked video scripts, and left with a fresh sense of how their work could look on a smartphone screen.

While the initiative is still in its infancy, the hope is clear: a future where a PhD‑level study on, say, renewable energy can be understood by a high‑school student after a two‑minute video. If that vision pans out, SARAL AI could become a standard part of the research workflow, ensuring that discoveries don’t just sit on a PDF, but travel far and wide.