Public policy workshop inaugurated at IIT Madras

Union Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar interacted with Prime Minister's Research Fellows (PMRF) and inaugurated a capacity building workshop on leadership skills for registrars of IITs, IISERs, and IISc. 

Union Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar inaugurated a workshop on public policy development for Amrit Kaal at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. The minister also interacted with Prime Minister's Research Fellows (PMRF) and inaugurated a capacity building workshop on leadership skills for registrars of IITs, IISERs, and IISc. 

Interacting with the Prime Minister’s Research Fellows at the ‘Annual PMRF Symposium 2023’, Sarkar, said, “Research will have to be for the society and the country. The key objectives of research must first be the generation of profound and disruptive knowledge and second, the consumption of this knowledge for socio-economic good. We must focus on innovations and start-ups. Our government has launched the Atal Mission to promote innovation and more tech incubators have been established in the last few years. The industry must contribute by providing timely guidance.” 

What is PMRF scheme? 

The PMRF scheme has been designed to attract India’s best and brightest to research. Fellowships are offered to select PhD students from PMRF granting institutions after a rigorous evaluation process. Their performance is continuously monitored by a team of national experts. Fellows whose performance was commended by the review panel are invited to make in-person presentations at the annual symposium. 

Prof Shanthi Pavan, Dean, Academic Research, IIT Madras, said, “The scheme attracts top notch students to research and is already showing excellent results, contributing towards Atmanirbhar Bharat. There has been a total of 2,650 admissions in 38 granting institutes so far. The PMRF has also been mandated to create a social impact. The PMRF scholars have to spend an hour every week in a local college or a polytechnic and take classes at NPTEL/MOOCS. The scholars have spent a total of 1,14,250 hours to improve the technical expertise in India.” 

The inauguration of the first workshop in this series is being organised by a cluster of institutions, namely, IIT Madras, IIT Tirupati, NIT Calicut and NIT Puducherry, where IIT Madras is front-ending this cluster. Through these workshops, the participants would gain deep insights and awareness of the role of various factors such as IT, digitalisation, cybersecurity, sovereignty, globalisation, sustainability, political philosophy, and regulations on issues of national and global importance. 

Prof V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, presented an eco-friendly jacket made of recycled PET bottles to Subhas Sarkar. The jacket was made by Ecoline, a firm run by IIT Madras alumna Viji Shankar. 

Kamakoti said, “This workshop is extremely important and we have brought together all possible stakeholders from civil servants and elected officials to lawyers and doctors to create a think tank. This will help in effective formulation of public policy, which are interdisciplinary in nature and impact the common people, in a quick manner. This will be a yearly event and the institute hopes to form many think tanks in the future.” 

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