Fellowships galore attracting young talents to science
Fellowships galore attracting young talents to science
Fellowships given by the science Ministries & Departments have retained talents in science and brought back the proverbial prodigal sons and daughters who have been attracted to better chances aboard. Now involved in cutting edge science and technology, they have been instrumental in changing the face of Indian science. A recent conclave of Ramalingaswami fellows brought together 290 scientists who have come back and are working on basic problems like nutrition, anaemia, diseases & crop improvement in various scientific organisations/universities. In the last few years Ramalingaswami fellows have produced 883 papers, developed 53 technologies, 33 patents and two start-ups. India has myriad such fellowships
Ramanujam Fellowship
The Ramanujam fellowship is meant for brilliant scientists and engineers from all over the world to take up scientific research positions in India, i.e. for those scientists who want to return to India from abroad.
Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship
Call it the reversing of brain drain from the country. The DBT is keen to get back the precious scientific minds born and nurtured in the country that due to several reasons had gone away elsewhere, and hence the Ramalingaswamy Re-entry Fellowship for such biotechnologists by providing them an attractive avenue to pursue R&D in Indian institutions. The department has resources to bring up to 50 such brilliant brains back to the country every year.
TATA Innovation Fellowships
The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) initiated Tata Innovation Fellowship in 2007 to promote innovation in science, especially in Biotechnology in finding path-breaking solution of the major challenges. The emphasis of the scheme is to recognise and reward scientists with outstanding track record in biological sciences/ biotechnology and commitment to find innovative solutions in healthcare, agriculture, environment, conservation of natural resources, livestock production and manufacturing process and so on.
Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance
The DBT Wellcome trust alliance has a bunch of fellowships targeted to build excellence in the Indian bio-medical scientific community by supporting future leaders in the field.
DBT-JRF
Department of Biotechnology (DBT) provides fellowships to biotechnology students to pursue doctoral research in universities/research institutions across the country. The students are selected through Biotechnology Eligibility Test (BET) now being co-ordinated by the National Centre for Cell Sciences.
DBT-Research Associateship (DBT – RA)
DBT provides fellowships for post doctoral research in frontier areas of biotechnology and life sciences at premier institutions in India. The DBT-RA programme is being implemented by the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The fellowship is initially awarded for a period of two years and the support can be extended for 1 to 2 years based on review of progress.
Khorana Program for Scholars
This program of scholarship is an Indo-US collaborative effort to create an effective scientific contact between the biotechnology students of India and the biotech students of the United States of America. The scholarship allows Indian students of B Tech, M Tech and M Sc to undertake research internship in Wisconsin-Madison University of USA. The programme has now been expanded to some other universities of USA like Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Georgetown.
