IISc inks deal with French firm for PhD fellowship programme

Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Thales, a French electronic systems company, here on Friday to create a jointly supervised IISc-CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research, France) PhD fellowship scheme, that is scheduled to start at the end of 2015.

 A release from the company specified its aim to develop and strengthen Indo-French scientific cooperation through close collaborations between the Indian and the French laboratories and to boost industrial research by strong inter-connections with academic institutions.

Prof Dr Jayant Modak, Deputy Director, IISc, Bengaluru, said: “Indian Institute of Science is happy to initiate PhD Student Fellowship Programme with Thales.

 The programme will bring together researchers from IISc, Thales and CNRS to carry out cutting edge research. I hope this program acts as a catalyst for a long-term mutually beneficial research collaboration between our organisations.”

In the first edition of this new programme, upto 4 fellowships from India will be funded.
The students benefiting from these jointly supervised PhD 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. Antoine Caput, V-P and Country Director (India), Thales, said, “We are proud to associate with Indian Institute of Science to facilitate and promote research and development (R&D) in India.

This partnership reinforces our commitment to the country and takes us a step closer towards strengthening our relationship with the Indian academic community.”