The Department of Health Research (DHR) has received union finance ministry's approval for its Rs.597 crore scheme of ‘Human Resource Development for Health Research’ which is intended to create a pool of talented health research personnel in the country by upgrading skills of faculty of medical colleges, mid-career scientists, medical students, etc by specialised training in priority areas of health research in leading national and international institutions.
The priority areas of research identified for this purpose include, toxicology, genomics, proteomics, geriatrics, stem cell research, clinical trials, good clinical practices (GCP), biotechnology, genetics, operational research, health informatics, medical ethics, health economics and any other area that needs support.
According to senior officials, the DHR felt the need for such a scheme as much of the biomedical research being carried out in the country today is confined to a few medical colleges/institutes of the country. A major constraint in most of the medical colleges of the country is the lack of adequate and properly trained human resource for health research. A strong need has been, therefore, felt that the research activity is encouraged in all medical colleges/institutions across the country, with particular emphasis on peripheral/ underserved areas.
The scheme is intended to create a pool of talented health research personnel in the country by upgrading skills of faculty of medical colleges, mid-career scientists, medical students etc by specialised training in priority areas of health research in leading national and international institutions, encourage and support the trainees to develop and take up research projects for addressing critical national and local health problems and financial assistance to institutions for up- gradation of infrastructure to enable such institutions to provide training with state of the art technologies. Development and implementation of online web based courses on health research is an important component of scheme.
The scheme has a separate component specifically for training of women scientists who have had break in their career and to encourage the non-resident Indians (NRIs), Persons of Indian Origin (PIO), Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) serving abroad in health research activities, to come back to India for undertaking research in identified areas. Support will also be provided to scientific/professionals/association/bodies engaged in the fields of medicine, surgery, microbiology, pathology etc. for undertaking various activities/events with a view to promote higher standards in medical/health research and for devising guidelines for policy making and prevention and management of different diseases.