Opinion Bringing back Indian-origin faculty will need changes in policy, culture

As reported in the media, the initial focus seems to be on a small number of priority areas in STEM, which are fields strategically important for national capacity building. This demonstrates a focused and pragmatic approach to strengthening our competitive edge.

While the proposed “set-up grant” is a crucial, necessary step towards financial and operational autonomy, it addresses only one aspect of this complex challenge. As Chintan Vaishnav, previously director of the Atal innovation mission, suggests, the key lies in creating a “seamless experience” for a returning academic, that goes far beyond mere policy intent. The disparity in salaries, with a full professor in India earning about $40,000 annually compared to $130,000–$200,000 in the US and around $100,000 in China, means that we may never match global financial benchmarks. Therefore, the return on investment for these scholars, in addition to financial compensation, must be intellectual and cultural, and in the ease of doing research.

For the scheme to succeed, it requires a structural and cultural transformation extending beyond the grant itself. Policy interventions must include institutionalising administrative insulation — a “red carpet mandate” — that guarantees seamless management of logistics, procurement, and human resources, leveraging, for example, the recently increased institutional autonomy for non-government procurement. Further, the scheme must guarantee long-term career security via explicit tenure-track conversion pathways, moving decisively past the fragmentation of previous fellowship-based programmes. In the case of scientific research, policies outlining intellectual property ownership must be formulated and clearly enunciated in the host institutions. For senior academics moving back with families, job opportunities for spouses, housing, and school education opportunities for children need to be thought through. Finally, success depends on a high-level, public affirmation of academic freedom, insulating the faculty from onerous monitoring and scrutiny that is similar to what they are now facing in the countries from where we are expecting to welcome them back.

The proposed short orientation programmes are essential, but institutions must go deeper. Many public institutions have very little experience in employing international faculty and seamlessly integrating them into their system. The culture must shift from a rigid, hierarchical structure to one that actively fosters interdisciplinary collaboration, merit-based advancement, and true academic freedom, the foundational competitive advantage of a world-class university.

India has attempted such programmes before, notably the VAJRA Faculty Programme, which, despite its noble intent for high-impact short stints, has seen modest participation, facilitating collaborations between only about 100 overseas scientists since 2017-18. The new initiative must be designed to explicitly address the limitations of the past: Procedural delays, funding uncertainty, and inadequate institutional support. The emphasis must shift from transactional, short-term engagements to full-time or longer-term, tenured appointments, perhaps connected to teaching and mentoring groups of students, in order to offer a stable professional home.

The global competition is fierce: Europe is strengthening academic freedom, China offers well-funded recruitment initiatives, and Taiwan is internationalising its system. India’s success will be determined not by the size of the initial grant and facilities, but by the depth of institutional and policy reform we are willing to undertake. The “emotional pull” of returning home is a powerful, non-financial motivator, but it cannot sustain a career against structural deficiencies.

Finally, media reports seem to imply that these initiatives would be confined to a select number of research-intensive public institutes. Given that over the last two decades, the research landscape in Indian universities has transformed, such that some of the top-ranking research institutions happen to be central and state universities, as well as many in the private sector, there should be careful thought in the placement of these returning academics.

At Ashoka University, an institution founded on the principle of academic excellence and the fostering of critical inquiry, we view this initiative not just as a recruitment drive, but as a strategic inflection point for Indian higher education. At our university, we have witnessed the transformative power of repatriating Indian-origin faculty. They bring not just expertise but an invaluable international perspective on pedagogy, governance, and research best practices. We believe this scheme is an opportunity to not just bring back talent, but to fundamentally upgrade the institutional and cultural fabric of our top research bodies. The government’s proposal represents a significant commitment. The onus is now on our premier institutions to commit to the accompanying, and much more difficult, changes in policy and culture that will truly make India the prime destination for academic excellence. The moment to reverse the brain drain and establish India as a global research hub has arrived. We must not let it pass.

The writer is vice-chancellor and professor of Physics, Ashoka University, Sonipat, Haryana. Views expressed are personal