IIT Bombay and IISER Pune to be mentors to promote research in higher education institutions

"The idea is to promote and improve research work at central and state universities under the mentorship from hub institutions which are already excelling in research,” said Prof Karandikar“Total of 31 institutions across the country having stellar research records have been identified to become hubs (File)

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay from Mumbai and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) from Pune are the two institutions from Maharashtra identified as mentors under the Partnerships for Accelerated Innovation and Research (PAIR)–a flagship initiative by the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) to promote research in higher education institutions in the country, secretary of Department of Science and Technology, Prof Abhay Karandikar said on Monday.

The ANRF, which aims to foster culture of research in India’s universities, colleges and other research institutions, launched the PAIR initiative a couple of months ago wherein higher educational institutions in the country having excellent research record will mentor other institutions such as central universities and public universities through pairing under ‘hub and spoke’ model.

“Total of 31 institutions across the country having stellar research records have been identified to become hubs. Now they will have to apply for PAIR along with their spoke institutions for a period of five years, on various themes listed for research with focus on multidisciplinary approach. The idea is to promote and improve research work at central and state universities under the mentorship from hub institutions which are already excelling in research,” said Prof Karandikar while adding that the mentorship parameters will have a range of activities from finalising on research topics depending on strengths, guidance on publishing of research papers in high quality journals and also co-supervising PhD students among others.

Each hub and spoke pairing will receive financial support of Rs 100 crore coming from the government through ANRF for a period of five years. “Out of the funding, 70 percent will have to be used for research activities at spoke institutions whereas a hub institution will get to use the remaining 30 percent of the grant. In order to expand the reach of the scheme, each hub institution is required to have one of the spoke institutions which is located outside of the state,” said Prof Karandikar who currently also holds charge on ANRF as CEO.

Prof Karandikar, who will be the chief guest for Mumbai University’s convocation ceremony to be held on Tuesday, delivered a talk at varsity’s Kalina campus a day before on how ANRF is transforming the science and technology landscape in the country. The talk which entailed information on various new schemes under ANRF to enhance research output was attended by several researchers from Mumbai University–faculty as well as students.

In his talk, Prof Karandikar highlighted that research output in the country is concentrated in few institutions with lowest number of (18) institutions having average publication per institute at 7,620 research papers and highest number (115) institutions have average publication per institute of 1,121 research papers while underlining how ANRF is devoted to enhance research and development outputs in institutions across the country.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/iit-bombay-and-iiser-pune-to-be-mentors-to-promote-research-in-higher-education-institutions-9763583/lite/