50 Centers Of Excellence For Science And Technology : Govt Of India

Within the next six years, the government is planning to establish 50 centers of excellence in front line fields of science and technology.

The centers that will be set up by the government will teach fields such as biotechnology, nano-materials, mechatronics, bio-informatics, nano-technology and high performance computing apart from various other areas.

For the establishment of the centers, 35 professionals from around 30 educational institutions have been short-listed by a committee headed by scientist C.N.R. Rao. 15 moreproposals will be added later. The centers will be located in the campuses of already established government and private institutions and will be completely autonomous.

The committee headed by C.N.R. Rao had utilized rigorous tools and global strictures in order to gauge the research potential and past performances of educational institutions that had submitted their proposals.

The proposals that were selected from institutions for consideration were chosen on the basis of the number of PhDs and post graduate students churned out by the institution and the number of applications received during the past five years. Another criterion for judging the institution included the profile of the leader of the group that had submitted the proposal.

In the eleventh five year plan that will end on March 31, 2012, a provision of Rs.150 crore has been made for the setting up of institutions of higher learning. Teachers and scientists will be recruited on the basis of contracts and will be given higher salaries.