NEW DELHI: In order to facilitate and promote research, the Union HRD Ministry is drawing up plans for a global research interactive network, where students will be provided scholarship and given an opportunity to work with reputed foreign laboratories. They would have the liberty return to India and continue with research.
The government has also approved the establishment of a Higher Education Financing Agency which would provide scholarships, good teachers and an opportunity to students to visit foreign varsities and construct research labs with international standards.
Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar had recently said the government would be launching several initiatives to reverse the brain drain.
This government also aims to create 20 world-class universities—10 private and 10 public institutions— in India.
The ministry is also streamlining the promotion of research within government institutions. At least 26 government ministries and departments had entered into an agreement to collaborate for technology development in March this year.
This covered various engineering disciplines in institutions such as the IITs and NITs. This is part of the IMPRINT initiative (IMPacting Research Innovation and Technology) of the NDA government, a multi-disciplinary and multi-partner programme aimed at technology development. Ten technology domains have been identified under IMPRINT.
These are healthcare, energy, sustainable habitat, nanotechnology, water resources, advanced materials, information and communication technology, manufacturing, security and defence, and environmental science and climate change.