NEW DELHI, Oct 29:
In order to motivate universities to work towards excellence in higher education, President Pranab Mukherjee has instituted Visitor’s awards for best university, research and innovations.
“All Central Universities, of which the President of India is Visitor, will be eligible for the award for the best university,” said a notification issued by the President’s Secretariat.
All faculty members and students of all the central universities will be eligible for the Visitor’s award for innovation as well as Visitor’s award for research. Individuals or group of individuals can also apply, it said.
The purpose of the award is to encourage excellence through competition.
“These awards would help promote healthy competition amongst central universities and motivate them to adopt best practises from around the world in the pursuit of excellence,” the notification said.
The Visitor’s award for the best university will be given on the basis of academic excellence and overall outstanding work by the Central university during the year.
Whereas, the Visitor’s award for innovation will be given for unique innovation developed and displayed by individual or group of the Central university. The Visitor’s award for research will be given for path-breaking research carried out by individual or group of the central university during the year, it said.
The awards will be given annually.
While the Visitor’s award for the best university will carry citation and trophy the award for innovation and research will carry a citation and cash reward of Rs one lakh each, respectively.
A panel of awardees would be prepared by a selection committee for final selection by the President. The committee will be headed by Secretary to the President and comprise Secretaries of Department of Higher Education, and Department of Science & Technology as members.
The Chairman, University Grants Commission (UGC), Executive Vice-Chairman, National Innovation Foundation, Director General, Council for Industrial and Scientific Research (CSIR), two persons of eminence in the field of academics, research and other relevant fields to be nominated by the President will also be the members of the selection panel.
An officer from the President’s Secretariat will be the Member Secretary.
“The selection committee will invite online nominations in the prescribed formats. The selection committee will devise its own procedure to select the awardees, which will be put on the website of the President of India,” the notification said.
“The awards shall be presented by the President at the time of annual conference of the Vice Chancellors of Central universities held annually in the month of February,” it said adding that “the names of the recipients of awards will be published in the official Gazette”. (PTI)
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