Array
IMPRESS and SPARC, the two web portals has been launched today by the MHRD. These two portals will serve to promote research and innovation in the country and facilitate research projects in the areas of Social Sciences by academics in India, and research collaboration among Indian and Foriegn Academics. IMPRESS is stands for “Impactful Policy Research in Social Sciences” and SPARC is stands for “Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration”.
About IMPRESS
In the press conference, MHRD said that there will be Rs. 414 crore has been allotted for this scheme to run for the four years and total of 1500 projects is expected to fund under this scheme. MHRD Minster also said that society can’t progress without research in social science spectrum.
IMPRESS should focus on all relevant Social Sciences area such as state and democracy, urban transformation, media culture and society, employment skills and rural transformation, governance innovation and public policy, innovation and , agriculture and rural development, social media and society, politics law and economics.
“Projects would be selected for funding in an impartial manner. That challenge mode would be applied and selection will be strictly merit-based” said by HRD Minster, Mr. Prakash Javadekar.
The quality benchmark for IMPRESS is that only such universities which are under 12B schemes of UGC. Each project shall conclude in 3 years and will be monitored by ICSSR.
About SPARC
The SPARC scheme is launched to encourage research collaborations between Indian universities and some of the leading foreign universities. For this scheme, government has allotted Rs. 418 crores and under this scheme funding would be provided under three categories - below 50 lakhs, below 75 lakhs, and below 1 crore.
"A country achieves prosperity on a sustainable basis only through innovation which can happen only by good research and which is currently a major focus area of the government," said by HRD Minster, Mr. Prakash Javadekar.
Those Indian Universities which are in Top 100 NIRF Ranking or Top 100 NIRF Subject Ranking and those foreign University which is either in top 500 of QS ranking or top 200 of QS subject ranking can only eligible for this scheme.
Check NIRF Rankings for 2018, Click Here
"It is a scheme for promotion of academic and research collaboration. Under the scheme we are giving Rs. 418 crore for 600 joint research proposals. The idea is to stop brain drain and provide facility so that they can do research in India which is of international level," said by HRD Minister Mr. Prakash Javadekar.
There will be 8 members in each team, which are funded under this scheme, in which there will be 2 faculties of each Indian and Foreign University and 2 students of each Indian and Foreign University.
IIT-Khargapur is the national coordinating institute to implement the SPARC programme and both of schemes will start from the January 2019.
Source: with the inputs of NDTV
Read More:
