Indian university students looking to pursue research abroad can now get funding from the government

• The Indian government has launched Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) pushing for more research initiatives globally.
  
• This includes joint research in several domains including Science, Technology, Social Science and Humanities.
  
• The Human Resource Ministry recently accredited funds worth ₹4.18 billion, accepting 600 research proposals.
  

The Indian government has said it will fund joint research projects at foreign labs for students at Indian universities.

Under the programme called Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration or SPARC launched late last year to improve the research ecosystem in India’s higher education, it will offer students a chance to work in at least 28 global universities.

The programme will include research in several domains including science, technology, social science and humanities. However, the funding is limited to joint research with foreign universities.

The government is now reportedly infusing funds for the joint research programs. The Human Resource Ministry recently accredited funds worth ₹4.18 billion, accepting 600 research proposals from Indian institutes and global universities.

Of the total approved projects, several projects are on food processing optimisation, seed testing procedures, enabling smart cities via IoT technologies from institutes across New Zealand, India and Australia.


How does it work?

The scheme reportedly aims to aid Indian students at the most advanced stage in Science — clinical research structural genomics and evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence and electronics and communication, cognitive science, digital humanities.

Indian institutes can partner with foreign universities that have been listed on the top 500 QS World University Rankings.

It also allows the researchers from foreign institutes, who have partnered for the project to look in on the Indian institutes and conduct workshops to cater the tertiary students in their niche subject, according to Shyam Kumar Masakapalli, assistant professor at IIT-Mandi who’s project fetched ₹4.6 million under the SPARC scheme.


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