India's flagship programme to retain young scientists hits a rough patch

About 35% of the initial batches of INSPIRE faculty fellows now find themselves at the end of the road, with neither a job in hand nor any encouraging prospects.

One of India’s flagship programmes to retain young scientific talent and prevent brain drain has run into rough weather.

The Department of Science and Technology’s (DST’s) ‘Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research’ (INSPIRE) programme, launched in 2008, aims to attract people to the study of science at an early age by providing an “assured opportunity for research” through two types of 1,000 fellowships every year. One is the INSPIRE fellowship for PhD students and the other, the INSPIRE Faculty Scheme for postdocs through contractual and tenure-track positions for five years. It is the interpretation of, and expectations from, the