IISc, French major ink pact for joint doctoral fellowships

Bangalore: French defence major Thales and the Indian Institute of Science on Friday signed an agreement to create a jointly supervised doctoral fellowship scheme scheduled to start by this year end.

The aim of the Memorandum of Understanding between Indian and French laboratories is to boost industrial research by strong inter-connections with academic institutions, Thales said.

"We are proud to associate with Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, to facilitate and promote research and development (R&D) in India. Through this significant MoU, we look forward to contribute to the Indian government's mission of skilling and up-skilling people, and its focus on enhancing the R&D fields in India," Antoine Caput, VP & Country Director ? India, Thales, said.

In the first edition of this new programme, up to four IISc-CNRS fellowships from India will be funded.

CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique or French National Centre for Scientific Research) is a governmental research organisation in France.

The students benefitting from these jointly supervised fellowships will have a PhD supervisor in India and a co-supervisor in France (from one of the identified CNRS laboratories).

A joint degree option between IISc and French institutions will be explored in the future.