Why in news?

• The Govt. in August 2018 had sanctioned the SPARC scheme with IIT Kharagpur as the National Coordinating Institute to implement the SPARC programme.

SPARC Portal:

SPARC scheme aims at improving the research ecosystem of India’s higher educational institutions by facilitating academic and research collaborations between Indian Institutions and the best institutions in the world.

• Under this Scheme, 600 joint research proposals will be awarded for 2 years to facilitate strong research collaboration between Indian research groups with the best in class faculty and renowned research groups in the leading universities of the world.
• The collaboration will conduct research in areas that are at the cutting edge of science or with direct social relevance to the mankind, specifically India.

Salient Features of SPARC Scheme:

• This scheme will improve research ecosystem of India’s higher educational institutions by facilitating academic and research collaborations/
• The Indian institutions will include those from top-100 or category-wise top-100 in NIRF (including such Private Institutions which are recognized under 12(B) of UGC Act)].
• The foreign institutions will be from top-500 overall and top-200 subject-wise institutions listed in QS World University Ranking) from 28 selected nations.
• As per the criteria mentioned above, 254 top Indian Institutes and 478 top ranked global Institutes have been already identified.

Areas of the Research:

• A set of 5 Thrust Areas has been identified for collaboration under SPARC.
• They are Fundamental Research, Emergent Areas of Impact, Convergence, Action-Oriented Research and Innovation-Driven. Each Thrust Area will have a Section Chair. The role of Section Chair of each Thrust Area is to review shortlist and recommend the potential joint-proposals submitted under SPARC scheme.
• The role of a Nodal Institutions will be to help, handhold and coordinate with willing Participating Indian (PI) Institutions to forge alliance with the Institutions of concerned participating foreign country.

Academic Activities under SPARC:

• SPARC proposes to enable productive academic cooperation by supporting the following critical components that can catalyse impact making research:
  • Visits and long-term stay of top international faculty/researchers in Indian institutions to pursue teaching and research,
  • Visits by Indian students for training and experimentation in premier laboratories worldwide
  • Joint development of niche courses, world-class books and monographs, translatable patents, demonstrable technologies or action-oriented research outcomes and products
  • Publication, Dissemination and Visibility through a high profile annual international conference in India.