Jadavpur University will offer "travel support" to its research scholars and teachers to attend conferences and seminars for talks or to present papers within India once a year.
A JU official said the UGC used to provide funds for these purposes. But the regulatory body has stopped providing funds for research travel since 2016, posing challenges for a section of scholars and teachers, he said.
The university will provide Rs 10,000 to research scholars as "travel support". The amount for teachers, including contractual faculty members, has been fixed at Rs 20,000.
The university has created a research grant from fees it earns by providing consultancy support to various projects through its teachers.
A circular issued by the university’s joint registrar, Sanjay Gopal Sarkar, said: “….the ‘travel support’ from JU research grant will be provided once in a year to the faculty members (including contractual faculty members), officers and ‘registered PhD scholars under any fellowship scheme’ for attending conference, symposia, workshop etc for the purpose of presenting research papers/ invited talk/ chairing a session within India…..The faculty members and officers will be provided with a maximum of Rs 20,000. Whereas the PhD scholars will get Rs 10,000 for the same.”
JU's officiating vice-chancellor, Amitava Datta, said: “The UGC does not provide for such grants any more. If we don’t send our research scholars and teachers to attend conferences and seminars, their research will suffer. The brand name of a university hinges on the kind of research that it produces. We have been doing exceedingly well in a national ranking exercise because of the research, which is one of the factors. So we have decided to provide support on our own.”
Last month, JU had ranked 4th among Indian universities in an annual ranking exercise conducted by the Union education ministry.
JU has not got the money the Centre promised under a scheme to fund research and scholarships.
On November 26, 2021, then VC Suranjan Das, at a virtual meeting with higher education department officials, said the Union education ministry was holding back Rs 35 crore JU was to get under the Rashtriya Uchchatara Siksha Abhiyaan (RUSA) 2.0 scheme.
The refusal to release the second instalment of the grant triggered distress among 450 young scholars engaged as RUSA 2.0 fellows because they had to find alternative sources of income amid the Covid pandemic, said a JU official.
“The non-release of the funds under RUSA caused severe inconvenience for the research scholars then. We are trying to support our research scholars as much as possible on our own,” said officiating VC Datta.
The circular from the JU joint registrar said applications for travel support are “to be submitted at least 30 days before the date of the programme”.