Students opt for long-term research

Buoyed by a boom in the pharma sector, which is witnessing a deluge of R&D centres being set up in India by international companies, a growing number of students are keen to undertake PhD programmes.

The increase in the number of students opting for PhDs has been consistent ""right from the IITs to the smaller engineering institutes like the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP).

For instance, IIT-Bombay registered the highest number of students (152) undertaking PhD so far this year. At the COEP, there are 100 students pursuing a PhD programme. "This is higher than the total number of PhD students that have passed out from the institute till date," said Anil Sahasrabudhe, director, COEP.

At the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, "The number of students undertaking PhDs increased to 296 in 2006, from 64 in 2005. Around 339 students registered for a PhD programme in 2007," said Hemant R Jadhav, assistant professor of pharmacy (Research and Consultancy Division), BITS-Pilani.

Information technology is emerging as a provider of thousands of jobs in applied research with companies like Google offering some of the best packages across sectors for researchers.

"Research in embedded systems, consumer electronics, multimedia technology, social networking, gaming, robotics among others have huge potential and those pursuing them are recruited by top IT-related companies," said BH Jajoo, senior faculty member at IIM-Ahmedabad.

"It is difficult to predict the industry requirement. However, the opportunities for researchers are on the rise with more and more MNCs opening their R&D centres in India, coupled by an increased demand from Indian companies," said PK Ingle, scientist and head (Publication and Science Communication Unit), National Chemical Laboratory.

While it is the lure of a lucrative career in applied research that is attracting most to take the PhD route, the number of students opting for pure academic research has not taken off, according to G Krishnamoorthy, dean (Graduate Studies), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).

The starting salary of a PhD degree holder joining as researcher in a pharma R&D lab could be anywhere between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh a year.

But after 7-10 years of experience, he could earn Rs 15-20 lakh per annum. However, the salary of an academic researcher is only Rs 2 lakh a year.