The Prime Minister Research Chair (PMRC) scheme is a flagship initiative by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education. The scheme aims to attract and engage leading Indian-origin researchers, scientists, and professionals from abroad and place them at premier government higher education institutions and national research laboratories in India to undertake research, as per official information.
Anchored on three core pillars, namely lead institutions, host institutions, and PMRC fellows, the scheme will be operationalised through India's leading government (central and state) Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), national laboratories, and research institutes, the official document stated. According to the central government, the initiative will enable high-impact research, innovation, and mentorship at selected government institutions.
Role Of Lead Institutions
According to the official announcement, one lead institution is designated for each thematic area. The lead institution will provide strategic direction, coherence, and quality assurance across the PMRC ecosystem, ensuring research under PMRC is mission-aligned, non-fragmented, and national impact oriented, the central government stated.
Lead institutions will also be responsible for evaluating the readiness and suitability of prospective host institutions within their respective thematic areas, as per the official notice.
Role Of Host Institutions
The government has stated that host institutions demonstrating strong research, development, and innovation (RDI) environment, industry-academia linkages, history of commercialising patents, and strong institutional research support will engage PMRC fellows.
The participating institutions are expected to extend in-kind contributions, such as, access to laboratories, libraries, research facilities, instrumentation, computational resources, collaborative academic environment, publication and institutional support.
Eligibility For Host Institutions
Interested institutions can check the eligibility criteria for host institutions below.
- Government HEIs in top 100 in the NIRF Overall category
- Government HEIs in top 100 in the NIRF Engineering category
- Government HEIs in top 50 in the NIRF Research category
Based on the official guidelines, national laboratories and research institutions under DBT, DST, CSIR, ICMR among others are also eligible to apply.
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The official notification has also announced that the host institutions are required to submit project proposals aligned with thematic areas. Multiple submissions across different themes can be submitted, the document added.
