BISR Trust has three types of Fellowship Programmes namely Adjunct Researcher Fellowship Programme, Visiting Fellowship Programme and Research Fellow Programme
BISR Trust is sponsoring research articles to the Bangladeshi scholars (who have at least two research articles published in any recognized national or international journal) to complete his/her proposed selected research work and publishes research findings in international peer-reviewed journals.
The Visiting Fellowship is a special programme of BISR Trust. This is a full time position. The programme envisages engaging Visiting Fellows with BISR Trust’s ongoing research activities or his/her own research activities for a specific period of time. The Visiting Fellow will work at the BISR Trust under sabbatical leave, fellowship, grant, etc. provisions provided by his/her institution and related bodies. In special cases, BISR Trust may draw up a specific contract with the Visiting Fellow with a view to carrying out a particular assignment. Both Bangladeshi and non-resident Bangladeshi academics and researchers are particularly welcomed to the position.
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Guwahati 781039, India
sambit@iitg.ac.in
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are Centrally Funded Technical Institutes located across India. They are under the ownership of the Ministry of Education of the Government of India (GoI) and are governed by the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961. The Act declares them as Institutes of National Importance and lays down their powers, duties and framework for governance as the country’s premier institutions in the field of technology. The Act currently lists 23 IITs at Kharagpur, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur, Delhi, Guwahati, Roorkee, Ropar, Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Jodhpur, Patna, Indore, Mandi, Varanasi, Palakkad, Tirupati, Dhanbad, Bhilai, Dharwad, Jammu and Goa. In June 2023, education officials of India and Tanzania announced that the first foreign IIT campus would be established on the Tanzanian autonomous territory of Zanzibar, as a satellite campus of IIT Madras. The campus is scheduled to begin offering classes in October 2023. Each IIT has autonomy and is linked to others through a common council that oversees their administration.
In the late 1940s, a 22-member committee, headed by Nalini Ranjan Sarkar, recommended the establishment of these institutions in various parts of India, along the lines of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with affiliated secondary institutions – interface with science and engineering, on the one hand, and humanities and social sciences, on the other. In IITs, we develop social science courses for engineering students to inculcate the spirit of critical thinking which helps them not only arrive at deliverable solutions but also formulate reflexive questions – dialectic of research and teaching is critically embedded in IITs. High quality research, teaching and attractive scholarships encourage bright students to join IITs.
The entire allocation by the central government for 2017-18 budget for all IITs was slightly over ₹70 billion (US$880 million). The GoI has earmarked INR 16,361 crore for the Union Ministry of Science and Technology, making up only 0.36% of the overall Union Budget 2022-23. The IITs have been allocated INR 9,661.5 crore, an increase of INR 1,166.5 crore over the 2022-23 estimates.
India was the first country to formulate its science policy (Scientific Policy Resolution) in 1958 as a result of the alliance between science, politics and industry. In 1983, the GoI leapfrogged from science to technology (Technology Policy Statement) to address the real-world problems such as poverty, unemployment, etc. Subsequently, the GoI attempted to integrate science and technology (Science and Technology Policy) in 2003. The idea of ‘innovation’ was incorporated in the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy in 2013 to encourage more product-based patents. IITs have been playing a stellar role in pursuance of this. Nevertheless, one must be aware of the hiatus between building scientific institutions and scientific temper. One should be aware of the importance of holding aloft the banner of “scientific temper” against the ethnocentrism-based racism of the biological school of the evolutionary theory. Science is an open-ended collaborative process over time and space because of the transitoriness of collaborative theories – a transitoriness stemming from the subjectivity involved in an activity riddled with shortcomings. The spirit of interrogation is historically and logically entrenched in science. In the 1990s, the post-world war II consensus on science and the state began to be disintegrated not just in the developed world but most parts of the developing world drawn into the frame of science and development during the decades of decolonization. This disintegration was itself a product of the coevolution of state and science, as well as the mutual transformations engendered by this parallel evolution. Disenchantment with demarcation between science and non-science, autonomy and cognitive authority of science has led several STS scholars to delve into the examination of science in its historical integrity and cultural embeddedness. What matters is not technology itself but the economic and social systems in which it is embedded. All knowledge is conditional, subject to revision.
The Research Fellow Programme of the BISR Trust is designed to provide an opportunity to accomplish academics and researchers with demonstrated track record who are working in areas of interest as expressed in BISR Trust’s current research programme for a specific period of time.
The person who intends to build his or her career in the field of research, BISR Trust offers them to do research work as Research Internee at free of cost under experienced researcher. The length of the course is not more than four (4) months at any time of the year. Interested candidates must have Master degree from reputed universities and have own laptop and have to know English and Bengali typing with necessary e-browsing, etc. Internee shows the satisfactory performance during internship has the opportunity to work as BISR employee.