| They are offering alluring packages towards this end. IIT Bombay for instance, is granting students Rs 48,000 for a trip to the US to attend international seminars in their field of specialisation. For a trip to Europe the institute will grant Rs 32,000 and for a trip to Asia the grant will be of Rs 18,000. Besides, the institute has enhanced the stipends for teaching assistant ship and of the students too. |
| An engineering college faculty has to have a PhD. Overall the shortage of faculty and research scientists in India is 150,000. In the engineering field itself (in various disciplines), the shortage of qualified PhD faculty is between 20,000-30,000 members. IIT Bombay has 1,300 PhD students currently pursuing their research in various disciplines of engineering. |
| "Our vision is that every student should go to international conferences during their PhD programme. Every research scholar should attend one conference, interact with people at the international level and present papers. Attending such conferences not only gives one a global outlook but also raises their excitement level," says Ashok Mishra, director, IIT Bombay. And at IIT Bombay, such ideas come from students. "Our students gave us ideas to come up with innovative methods and encourage students to take up research," added Mishra. |
| In fact, IIT Madras too has been sending its students to seminars and conferences abroad to present their research papers and build international contacts. "If the equipments are not available with us, we also allow our students to go to other universities or institutes to pursue high-end research," says an IIT Madras professor. IIT Madras has also created an interdisciplinary research approach where it wants professors from various disciplines to work together on one project. "Earlier when we would ask departments to take up research, they would disappear. But after creating a framework of interdisciplinary research, departments have shown considerable interest in taking up research work," says a professor from IIT Madras. |
| Partially, the IITs fund these research initiatives through their research projects and consultancy earnings. Other financial assistance comes from donations from the alumni and government research grants. |
| Another bid these institutes are making is to attract international students on campus for research. "We want to bring international students on our campus for research purpose. We have also made it a clause in the MoUs we sign with international universities and institutes which want to participate in research activities with us," says the professor. |
| IIT Bombay is also working with Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) to place their research students in the industry. "We have been able to place our students with companies like Larsen and Toubro, Mahindra and Mahindra, Forbes Marshall, Hindustan Lever et al. The human resource departments are not tuned in to the demand for such research professionals, so we are directly talking to companies to take our students," says Mishra. |
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