Utkal University to receive 9 crore PURSE grant from DST
Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph.
The ministry of science and technology, under its promotion of university research and scientific excellence (Purse) programme, has selected the Utkal University for an incentive of Rs 9 crore for research and development as grant.
“The department started the Purse programme in 2009. Based on studies carried out by the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS), New Delhi, the department will support 29 universities for the research and development grant under the Purse programme. The grant will be spread over three years,” said in-charge of research and development, Utkal University, S Jena.
“This is supposed to be the single biggest grant that the university has received in its history.
… In 2009, the grant was provided to 14 universities, based on their publications as per the Scopus international database for 1996-2006,” Jena said.
“Similar studies were being carried out by the NISTADS in the current year using the Scopus database on publications output for 1998-2008,” reads a letter from the ministry.
Based on the study, the department of science and technology will support 29 more universities for the research and development incentive grant under the Purse programme, it reads.
This is great news. I hope this provides a big boost to Science programs at Utkal University. We found a bit more about the PURSE grants from the site http://203.200.89.92/dst/scientific-programme/inspire/ser-inspire-speech.htm. Following are some excerpts from that site.
With a view to promote scientific research in our universities, the Ministry of Science and Technology has proposed a special scheme named Promotion of University Research and Scientific Excellence (PURSE). I am very happy to have launched this new scheme, which provides an incentive grant to performing universities based on scientific publications in Science Citation Indexed Journals. I sincerely hope that many more universities would enroll into scientific research and become qualified for such recognitions and incentive grants.
I am pleased and delighted that recent data shows that publications in Science Citation Journals of the world from India have been registering an annual growth of about 10% during the last few years. A total of 14 universities are among the 35 high productivity S&T institutions of the country whose contributions figure significantly in such publications during the last ten years.
For a country with our vast underlying scientific potential, these should be seen as rather modest gains. We should think big and act purposefully towards more ambitious goals.
Unlike other major scientific nations, India has a young population. If we can get our act together, this favourable demographic profile can be exploited enormously to make India a key knowledge supplier in the global economy in the next few decades.
December 14th, 2010