The Ministry of Human Resource Development has released the official notification for applying for DUO-India Fellowship Programme which is being introduced in 2019, with the aim of promoting exchange of faculty and students between India and European countries on a balanced and permanent basis. The selection of DUO-India Fellows would be made only once a year, according to HRD ministry. The applications will be accepted from July 15 to August 31, 2019.
"In order to improve the research ecosystem in the Higher Educational Institutions in our country, Scheme for promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) was launched in 2018,"said a statement from HRD Ministry.
"SPARC project promotes Joint Research Projects between reputed Indian and Foreign Institutions. To further improve the collaboration under SPARC, DUO-India Fellowship Programme is being introduced in 2019, with the aim of promoting exchange of faculty and students between India and European countries on a balanced and permanent basis," the ministry said.
For this program, only such institutes which are part of Joint Research Projects under SPARC are eligible to participate.
Starting from 2020, every year, DUO-India aims to fund 100 students-pairs for exchanges for one semester to improve mobility between Indian and European institutes, the ministry said.
As of now, 14 European countries namely Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and UK which are a part of SPARC programme are eligible for this fellowship programme.
Applicants must be members of the academic or scientific staff of institutes coming under the "SPARC" collaboration (i.e. they must be remunerated by the Higher Educational Institutes and it must be their main occupation).
However, the following groups are not entitled for a fellowship:
Students and PhD students;
Professors emeritus, honorary professors; and
Teaching assistants.
"Exemptions are possible for the colleges of arts. The selection committee will assess on a case-by-case basis," said the official notification.
The exchange fulfills all the two requirements below:
1. The Indian institute (Home institute) will select an Indian national professor of the Home institute to send to the European institute (Host institute), and such selection has been accepted by the Host institute;
2. The same Host institute will select an EU citizen professor of the Host institute to be sent to the Home institute, and such selection has been accepted by the Home institute.
The exchange is done by pairs- one professor from Indian HEI is hosted by a European institutes and vice versa.
The exchange must necessarily take place between the two same institutes, but does not need to take place in the same time span, nor between two identical departments.
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