Centre’s Indigenous Research Promotion Gets IIT-Kharagpur ‘SPARC’: Institute Chosen As Scheme’s National Coordinator

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur has been chosen as the coordinating institute for the Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) conceived by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Indian Express has reported.

SPARC aims to improve the nation’s research ecosystem by promoting research collaboration between different faculty and students.

“The scheme proposes to support components considered critical to the production of impact-making research. It will fund visits and long-term stay of top international faculty or researchers in Indian institutions to pursue teaching and research. Not merely that, it will also fund visits of Indian students for training and experimentation in premier laboratories worldwide,’’ a press statement issued by IIT Kharagpur said.

As the coordinator of the programme, IIT-Kharagpur will be managing the website, funds and holding ‘SPARC Conferences’ to manage the intellectual output of the scheme. As many as 28 different countries are being targeted in the first phase of the scheme.