As part of the National Biotechnology Development Strategy-2014 (Biotech Strategy II), the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) will soon initiate several measures for building world-class human capital and will nurture an outstanding workforce as well as leadership for R&D in both public sector and industry. As part of the Strategy, the DBT will expand the Star College Programme to 1,000 colleges across the country.
The Strategy has identified new schemes to address gap areas and several measures have been contemplated to drive the strategy. The DBT will provide web-based portal for study material in biotechnology for easy access to students and teachers, besides starting new courses.
The new courses under the Strategy include dual degree (3 years) in MSc/MBA in bio-enterprise management, agri-business management and pharma-business management; MSc programme for physicians; MSc programme for veterinary professionals; MSc programme in medical bioinformatics; and MD/PhD programme for physicians (with Fellowships).
Current capacities for short-term training will be transformed to make it more skill-based. Besides, separate Overseas Associate Fellowships for Undergraduate- and Post-graduate teachers will be introduced and five EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratories)-like centres will be established by the DBT in the country as part of the Biotech Strategy-II.
Apart from this, the DBT will expand the Star College Programme to 1,000 colleges across the country as access to quality undergraduate education is very critical as it lays the foundation for a lasting and productive science career. This has to cater to the needs of discovery, translation, manufacturing, commercialization and diffusion into markets and public systems. Bioscience, inter discipline science and biotech programme in 25 selected universities will be strengthened as ‘A’ Star programme
To accomplish these goals, the Strategy proposes to attract higher quality students to bioscience and biotechnology. Masters and Ph. D level branded programmes in bioscience/biotech for domain programme will be introduced in medical, veterinary, agriculture, forestry and engineering domain. 20 such centres will be established in existing institutes as DBT partnered centre. The Strategy proposes to set up more ‘Finishing schools’ in partnership with industry and also to involve industry in curriculum preparation and in actually teaching courses.
The Strategy also proposes to launch new schemes to increase mobility of industry professionals into academic institutions and vice versa. It proposes to promote bioscience and biotech higher education and research programme in engineering system. Besides all these, the Strategy proposes to establish a National Council for Biosciences and Bioengineering to provide outstanding training to trainers, linked to advanced technology platform in universities and inter institutional centres.