Source: The Indian Express, via India NewsWatch, October 6, 2013
Pune: In a bid to get rid of random disbursement, the government is planning a selective approach in allocating research support for academic institutions. This will also ensure that resources for research are used to the best advantage.
This has been one of the mandates given to the special committee set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to improve research performance of academic institutions.
The 18-member committee, headed by chairman of Centre’s Department of Biotechnology, has former heads of UGC, AICTE, and NCL. The heads of NAAC, NBA, IISc Bangalore and JNU are among other educational establishments.
“As India moves in the global knowledge economy, building awareness about critical global rankings, research evaluation and targeted and competitive research funding would be central to the country’s strategy to improve its research capacity and performance. The government has decided to constitute a committee to drive up the research performance of academic Institutions,” a MHRD notification reads.
Review of existing arrangements for funding of research, both core funding of research facilities, infrastructure and project funding in academic institutions, to identify gaps and create a framework to evaluate research and rankings are some of the key objectives the government has laid down before the committee.
TCS Insights: In a bid to eliminate random disbursement, the Indian Government is planning a selective approach in allocating research support for academic institutions. The move is also expected to ensure that resources for research are used to the best advantage.
This is a progressive move by the Indian government towards more application based research and from traditional research focused on publishing papers in journals. This approach has the potential to create opportunities for Canadian academic institutions to focus on high quality research exchange programs with Indian counterparts.
The Canadian Trade Commissioner Service’s education team has connections with a range of academic institutions in India across the areas of social science, physical science, engineering, technology, management, finance etc. and can facilitate discussions.