Major Higher Education and Research Schemes

India’s higher education and research framework is supported by a set of central schemes that fund infrastructure, promote advanced research, and enable academic collaboration. For Prelims revision, the key is to distinguish between research-funding bodies, university infrastructure schemes, scholarship programmes, and international partnership initiatives.

Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF)

• Establishment: ANRF was set up under the ANRF Act, 2023 as India’s apex research-funding body, replacing the earlier Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB).
• Leadership: The Prime Minister is the ex-officio President of the ANRF Governing Board, while the Union Ministers of Science & Technology and Education serve as ex-officio Vice-Presidents.
• Administration: Dr. Shivkumar Kalyanaraman is the first full-time Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ANRF; Prof. Abhay Karandikar served as interim CEO.
• Early career support: The Prime Minister’s Early Career Research Grant (PM ECRG) provides up to ₹60 lakh over three years.
• Inclusivity support: The Inclusivity Research Grant (IRG) is meant for SC/ST researchers and has subsumed the EMEQ scheme of SERB.
• Mission mode funding: ANRF also runs the Mission for Advancement in High-Impact Areas – Electric Vehicle (MAHA-EV) to build domestic capability in battery cells, power electronics, and charging infrastructure.

Institutional Infrastructure: PM-USHA, HEFA and PM-USP

• PM-USHA: Pradhan Mantri Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (PM-USHA), launched in June 2023, is the third phase of RUSA and a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.
• Funding pattern: The scheme follows a 60:40 funding ratio between the Centre and the States in the general category.
• Outlay: PM-USHA has an approved outlay of ₹12,926.10 crore for 2023–24 to 2025–26.
• Participation: More than 33 States and Union Territories have joined the scheme through Memorandums of Understanding.
• MERU component: Under the Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities (MERU) component, the Ministry of Education supports accredited state universities with grants of up to ₹100 crore each, for up to 35 approved institutions.
• HEFA structure: The Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) is a joint venture of the Ministry of Education (90.91% equity) and Canara Bank (9.09% equity).
• HEFA status: It is registered as a Section 8 government company and as an NBFC-ND-SI with the RBI.
• HEFA lending: Since its inception in 2017, HEFA has disbursed loans worth ₹24,977.62 crore to Centrally Funded Institutions for infrastructure projects.
• PM-USP scholarship: Under the Pradhan Mantri Uchchatar Shiksha Protsahan (PM-USP) Central Sector Scheme of Scholarship, students with family income up to ₹4.5 lakh per year receive ₹12,000 annually at the graduation level and ₹20,000 annually at the postgraduate level.

Academic Collaborations: SPARC and GIAN

• SPARC: The Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration supports partnerships between top-100 NIRF-ranked Indian institutions and foreign universities in 28 countries.
• Coordination: IIT Kharagpur serves as the National Coordinating Institution for SPARC.
• Objective: The scheme is designed to deepen academic and research linkages through collaborative projects.
• GIAN: The Global Initiative of Academic Networks funds lectures by international faculty in Indian institutions.
• Lecture support: Under GIAN, the Central government provides USD 8,000 for a one-week course and USD 12,000 for a two-week course.
• Delivery target: The Ministry of Education’s Output-Outcome Monitoring Framework for 2026–27 targets 200 GIAN courses, with a 90:10 ratio of in-person to online delivery.

Targeted Science and Social Science Initiatives

• STARS (sciences): The Scheme for Transformational and Advanced Research in Sciences is implemented and managed by IISc, Bengaluru.
• Research areas: STARS supports translational, India-centric research in physical, chemical, biological, nano, data, and earth sciences.
• STARS distinction: This scheme should not be confused with the World Bank-funded Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States (STARS), which is a school education scheme.
• STARS loan size: The school education STARS programme uses a US$ 500 million loan.
• STRIDE: The UGC-led Scheme for Trans-disciplinary Research for India’s Developing Economy funds projects in three components.
• STRIDE Component-1: Capacity building support of up to ₹1 crore.
• STRIDE Component-2: Support for social innovation of up to ₹1 crore.
• STRIDE Component-3: Humanities research support of up to ₹5 crore.
• IMPRESS: The Impactful Policy Research in Social Science scheme is implemented by ICSSR.
• IMPRESS focus: It promotes policy-relevant research across 11 key domains.

Key Prelims Takeaways

• ANRF: It is the apex statutory research-funding body and has replaced SERB.
• PM ECRG: The grant amount is up to ₹60 lakh for three years.
• PM-USHA: It is the third phase of RUSA and follows a 60:40 Centre-State funding pattern.
• MERU: Under PM-USHA, accredited state universities can get grants of up to ₹100 crore each.
• HEFA: It is a loan-based financing institution, not a non-repayable grant scheme.
• PM-USP: Scholarship support is ₹12,000 annually for graduation and ₹20,000 annually for postgraduation, subject to the ₹4.5 lakh family-income ceiling.
• STARS: Remember the difference between IISc-managed STARS for higher education research and World Bank-aided STARS for school education.