VTU offers incentives to nurture research talent among faculty and students

Visvesvaraya Technological University, based in Belagavi, encompasses two constituent colleges, and approximately 215 affiliated engineering colleges and architecture schools throughout Karnataka. It also recognises 986 research centers across its departments, affiliated colleges, and selected industries.
| Photo Credit: P K Badiger

To harness and nurture the research talent among faculty members and students, the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) has, for the first time, offered incentives for research and thesis.

The VTU has reserved ₹2 crore for research incentives and has also released research promotion guidelines. The processing of applications will be done on a first come, first served basis.

Why this initiative?

VTU-Belagavi encompasses two constituent colleges, and approximately 215 affiliated engineering colleges and architecture schools throughout Karnataka. It also recognises 986 research centers across its departments, affiliated colleges, and selected industries.

Currently, about 3,50,000 students are enrolled in various under-graduate, post-graduate, and research programmes. The faculty includes around 20,000 qualified individuals, with approximately 5,314 of them holding doctoral degrees, teaching at both under-graduate and post-graduate levels within the university and its affiliated colleges. Additionally, there are about 4,000 qualified research supervisors in VTU departments and affiliated colleges who oversee Ph.D scholars pursuing their degrees.

Therefore, to ensure uniformity, transparency, and adherence to high standards of research beyond the minimum requirements set by the University Grants Commission (UGC), the VTU has decided to offer incentives for research activities.

Research incentives schemes

According to the guidelines, the VTU will be offering incentives ranging from ₹4,000 to ₹8,000 for journal papers for faculty members and students, ₹3,000 for conference papers, and ₹5,000 for book chapters.

For sponsored research projects, it will provide the incentive equal to 5% of the project grant, limited to a maximum of ₹1 lakh per project.

For product development and innovation, it will provide ₹2 to ₹5 lakh. Incentive of ₹25,000 for patents, 30% of the cost for registration of copyright will be given.

The university has decided to reimburse 50% of registration fee for faculty members and students who attend national conferences. For international conferences, along with reimbursement of 50% of registration fee, economy air fare and on-duty and daily allowances will be given.

Around ₹1,500 to ₹10,000 will be given for publication of books, apart from ₹10,000 for product development.

“This incentive programme implemented by VTU for quality research is excellent and will help the faculty a lot. Previously, we had to attend national and international conferences at our own expense. It is good that VTU has now announced that it will reimburse 50% of the registration fee along with economy air fare. The money saved from this will be spent on research activities,” said an assistant professor of a private engineering college in Bengaluru.

Incentive ranging from ₹1,000 to ₹3,000 will also be given to students winning competitions at the national level, State level and hackathons or project competitions.

“Apart from scholarship programmes in colleges, we did not have any financial support to engage in other activities, including research. Giving incentives to students to participate in various completions is a good initiative,” said Poorvi, a third-year engineering student.

S. Vidyashankar, Vice-Chancellor of VTU, told The Hindu, “For the first time, VTU has implemented an incentive programme to nurture the research talent among faculty members and students. These incentives are designed to encourage the publication of research papers, patents, and other scholarly works. It will support conducting high-quality research, facilitate technology transfer, and protect intellectual property, all while staying aligned with the university’s mission and values. Online applications have already been invited. All faculty members and students should make use of this programme.”