IIT Kharagpur Selected as National Coordinating Institute of SPARC Scheme

IIT Kharagpur has been selected as the national coordinating institute of the SPARC (Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration) scheme. The objective of the SPARC scheme is to improve the ecosystem of research in higher learning institutes across the country. The scheme promotes academic and research collaboration between Indian institutes, renowned research groups in international institutes and best-in-class faculty.

Being a national coordinator, IIT Kharagpur will distribute SPARC funds, managing the intellectual output of SPARC, liaise with HRD Ministry, organise two annual SPARC conferences, coordinating with other nodal institutes across the country and manage online portal. Under the first phase of the SPARC scheme, the idea is to target 28 foreign countries. The partner institutes under the SPARC scheme will be selected based on QS World University Rankings.

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SPARC scheme proposes to support factors considered crucial to the production of impact-making research. The scheme will further fund visits and long-term stay of renowned researchers or international faculty in Indian higher learning institutes to pursue research and teaching.

Apart from funding international faculty and researchers, SPARC scheme will also fund visits of Indian students for experimentation and training in premier laboratories worldwide.

Director of IIT Kharagpur, Professor Partha Pratim Chakrabarti revealed that SPARC funding would be initially used for fundamental research areas, innovation-driven research, action-oriented research, convergence areas and emerging areas of interest. The areas of collaboration will include social sciences, humanities and science & technology, he added.

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SPARC is one of the schemes of its kind that provides international expertise to solve critical national problems. The scheme is expected to lead to the joint production of authored publications, two national conferences, several workshops, demonstrable technologies and products, patents and research monographs.

IIT Kharagpur launched SPARC web portal on September 28, 2018. The proposal portal on the official website of SPARC will be functional from October 04 to November 15, 2018. Each higher learning institute in India is allowed to submit proposals with any of the 28 foreign countries. A sectional committee will do the preliminary evaluation of proposal followed by the final evaluation by an apex committee. IIT Kharagpur is expected to approve 600 proposals this year.