PU to give cash reward to top scientists

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 20

After three years, Panjab University (PU) is all set to revive the scheme of rewarding its top scientists every year.

As many as 16 scientists will be chosen and each awardee will be given Rs 50,000 cash, which could be used for consumables.

As per the new scheme of the Research Promotion Cell (RPC) of the PU, the award will be given in two categories — to the faculty members who are aged 45 years or less and those who are above 45 years.

The cut-off date is April 1 for this year’s awardees. The faculty, including those under the UGC Faculty Recharge Programme and those re-employed, will be considered.

There will be four teachers each from chemical sciences and chemical engineering; physics and engineering; basic medical sciences and dental science; and two each in life sciences and pharmaceutical sciences; computer science, mathematics and statistics.

For 16 scientists, the PU will shell out Rs 8 lakh from the Promotion of University Research and Scientific Excellence (PURSE)-II grant. The PURSE grant comes from the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

“This scheme for science departments will be an annual feature. Those who will receive the award this year will not be considered next year. We are also looking forward to provide the top performing faculty members from humanities with incentives,” said Prof Rajat Sandhir, Associate Director, RPC, who is responsible for the revival of the awards.

Parameters

The number of publications in Scopus or Institute of Scientific Information-indexed journals in the last five years will be considered for teachers who are less than 45 years of age and publications in the last 10 years will be considered for those who are above 45 years of age. Similarly citation count, h-index and I10 index will be counted for the same number of years for both categories.

Another parameter is patents wherein those applied or granted or commercialised will be considered.

The transfer of technology is another criterion.

The cumulative impact factor will be considered for five years for teachers who are less than 45 years of age, and for 10 years for those who are more than 45 years of age.

“A committee will be formed to consider the cases and take decision. Emphasis will be given on the first and corresponding authors in research papers,” said Prof Rajat Sandhir. Faculty members can apply by June 15. The publications and bibliometric data has to be with the PU affiliation.

The PURSE scheme

The PURSE scheme provides research grants to universities based on scientific publications in Science Citation Indexed Journals through Scopus Database (mainly h-index). It is about Rs 30 crore for three years.

During the Phase I of the PURSE grant, several faculty members were provided with grants to purchase chemicals or minor equipment in recognition of their research performance. At that time, top performing teachers, selected on the basis of cumulative index, used to get between Rs 75,000 to Rs 2 lakh. But during the Phase II of PURSE, which started from 2014-15, top performing faculty members were not incentivised.

Now, standing-cum-monitoring committee of PURSE-II has decided to continue the tradition of recognising the research performance of the faculty by giving incentives to the achievers in the form of special grant.

Criteria to choose best faculty

• Number of publications in Scopus/ISI indexed journals
• Citation counts
• Cumulative impact factor
• h-index
• i10-index