Amid Trump admin’s higher-ed squeeze, Modi govt plans scheme to woo back Indian-origin ‘star faculty’ abroad

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The plan, according to officials, is to strengthen the country’s research and development ecosystem by offering these scholars positions in premier institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, top research laboratories, and autonomous bodies under the DST and DBT. To give researchers financial autonomy and operational flexibility, a substantial “set-up grant” may be allowed to enable them to establish laboratories and teams in India. The IITs are on board with the proposal, and several of their directors have participated in discussions with the government on the implementation framework.

According to sources, the scheme will initially identify 12-14 priority areas in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for which talent will be invited. These will include fields considered strategically important for national capacity building.

When asked institutional and policy changes the government needed for such a scheme, Dr Chintan Vaishnav, an academician at the MIT Sloan School of Management, who was appointed as the Mission Director for Atal Innovation Mission for four years, and is now back in the same school, said, “On the input side, the key now is to create mechanisms that make their experience seamless — housing, hospitality, day-to-day needs — all those small things that can otherwise become annoyances. This part needs a red-carpet approach, not just policy intent.”

He said India had the feedstock for collaboration — institutions already have a long history of international partnerships, and there’s real interest among foreign-based Indian scholars.

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“Financially, we may never match global salaries, but there’s an emotional pull; good signalling will bring talent. On the output side, the focus should be on selecting the right people and then letting them be. Monitoring and reporting shouldn’t be so onerous that it drains the energy out of research. We must also clarify IP ownership early. The approach should be like Vikram Sarabhai’s at ISRO — trust the best to deliver, keep oversight light, and build long-term relationships rather than transactional exchanges,” Dr Vaishnav said. He also felt that institutions hosting scholars should have short orientation programmes so that experiences are uniform, regardless of whether one goes to IIT X or Y.

The discussions in the government come at a time when several countries are competing to attract global academic talent in wake of President Donald Trump escalating its interventions in the higher education sector, directly challenging university autonomy and academic freedom.

One prominent move — the so-called Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education — offered the US institutions access to enhanced federal funding only if they agreed to a series of ideological and structural conditions (including caps on international student intake, bans on race- or gender-based admissions, and tuition freezes). At the same time, top universities such as Harvard University have had billions of dollars in federal grants frozen as part of demands to overhaul admissions, governance and faculty policies — actions critics say amount to coercive suppression of institutional independence.

In wake of such interventions, in Europe, programmes to strengthen academic freedom and research funding have been announced, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently stating that she intends to make academic freedom part of European law. China continues to attract overseas Chinese scientists and leading foreign researchers through well-funded recruitment initiatives, while Taiwan has announced six new research centres as part of efforts to internationalise its higher education system.

Officials familiar with the matter said India’s plan seeks to position its research institutions competitively in this global race. The government hopes the move will help address long-standing concerns about the outflow of scientific talent and strengthen the country’s innovation ecosystem.

While India already runs programmes that enable overseas scientists, mainly of Indian origin, to collaborate with domestic institutions on short-term projects, the proposed initiative is aimed at full-time or longer-term appointments.

For instance, the Visiting Advanced Joint Research (VAJRA) Faculty Programme, run by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), is designed to bring top global talent into India’s R&D ecosystem for short, high-impact stints of up to three months a year. But participation levels have remained modest. Since its launch in 2017–18, the programme has facilitated collaborations between nearly 100 overseas scientists and Indian research institutions, resulting in about 60 completed joint projects, according to a Parliament reply in August this year.

According to experts, India faces structural hurdles in attracting top star faculty abroad. In a piece published in the International Higher Education journal (launched by Boston College’s Center for International Higher Education) in October 2019, its founding editor Philip G. Altbach and Indian researcher Eldho Mathews note that “the structural and practical realities of Indian universities make them generally unattractive for academic talent from abroad.” Salaries remain “not globally competitive” — a full professor in India earns roughly USD 38,000 annually, compared with USD 130,000–200,000 in the U.S. and around USD 100,000 in China. Bureaucratic red tape, limited research funding, and the absence of long-term contracts further deter international scholars. As the authors point out, public institutions have “little experience in hiring international faculty,” and navigating approvals “through multiple government departments” can be “time-consuming.” These constraints, they argue, must be addressed if India hopes to compete in the global race for academic excellence.

The government sources said the proposed scheme is being designed to address the limitations of past attempts to bring back overseas Indian researchers — including procedural delays, funding uncertainty, and limited institutional support. Officials are also discussing modalities related to intellectual property rights, research autonomy, and tenure structure.

The proposal, once finalised, will be placed before the Union Cabinet for approval.