National Research Foundation to strengthen the research ecosystem in the country

New Delhi: The Government proposes to set up a National Research Foundation (NRF) to strengthen the research ecosystem in the country. NRF is being envisaged as an umbrella structure that will improve linkages between R&D, academia and industry. The total proposed outlay of National Research Foundation is Rs 50,000 crore over a period of five years.

One of the main objectives of NRF is to seed, grow and facilitate research at academic institutions, particularly at universities and colleges, where research capacity is currently in a nascent stage. It will also fund and support high-impact, large-scale, multi-investigator, multi-institution and, in some cases, interdisciplinary or multi-nation projects in collaboration with relevant Ministries, Departments, and other Governmental and non-Governmental entities, especially industry.

The Government announced the National Education Policy, 2020 (NEP) on 29-07-2020, after a gap of 34 years. The policy envisages transformational changes in the education sector. One of the major recommendations in this regard is to promote more and more use of regional languages in education. In this regard, the Government has taken a number of steps including:

NEET exam for medical entrance which was being conducted in 11 languages will now be conducted in 13 languages.
JEE (Main) which was being conducted in 3 languages will now be conducted in 13 languages.
Technical education in 8 Regional languages in certain AICTE approved institutions from the academic session 2021-2022 on pilot basis.
Translation of reference materials for courses of engineering in regional languages under SWAYAM platform, which has been offering online courses in disciplines such as Science, Engineering & Technology, Humanities & Social Sciences, Law, Management etc.
AICTE handbook (Approval Process Handbook 2021-22) for institutes that wish to apply for running programs in regional languages.
“AICTE Translation Automation Artificial Intelligence Tool” to translate English language online courses into eleven different languages like Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Assamese & Odia for access to a more significant number of students in the rural area.
MOU has been concluded between the Govt of Haryana and AICTE towards publishing of 1,000 books in Hindi.
Student Induction Program (SIP) , now a mandatory part of curriculum for students of first year in engineering, being delivered in regional language

This information was given by the Union Minister of Education, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan in the Lok Sabha today.