BENGALURU: As part of its comprehensive overhauling of the higher education system , India may get an agency on the lines of the US’ National Science Foundation (NSF) to foster research at universities , which experts across the country concede are way below the mark.If the Centre implements the New Education Policy (NEP)— revised after 27 years — India will get a National Research Foundation ( NRF ) as proposed in the policy, to grant competitive funding for outstanding research proposals across all disciplines, as determined by peer review and success of proposals.It will carry out a special programme for state universities until 2040. It will liaison among researchers, ministries of government, and industry to ensure that the most relevant and societally useful research reaches people as soon as possible.The NSF, created by the Congress in 1950 has been the main driver of modern research in the US with an annual budget of more than $8 billion today. The NRF, which the NEP panel hopes will attain a similar status in the future, is also hoping to seed, grow, and facilitate research at academic institutions, particularly at universities and colleges by funding competitive, peer-reviewed grant proposals of all types and across all disciplines.“We’re primarily targetting university-level research, which is in very poor state. There are clearly laid-out objectives to focus on the 800-odd universities first, while also aiding research at elite institutes,” K Kasturirangan told TOI.The NEP committee, while noting that India, unfortunately, has no organised mechanism to address important matters regarding research in an interrelated fashion, has said: “...This is precisely the goal of a new and comprehensive NRF”.The agency will catalyse research in institutions that have hitherto not been big players in the research scene, and help build the capacity to do research through an institutionalised mentoring mechanism, involving expert researchers from premier institutions in the country.“Universities are in different stages of maturity. In places there is already some research, we will fund to make them more competitive with quality work, and in places where there’s been no research, we’ll look at seeding those capabilities and bring in mentors to aid faculty. Our aim is to make the scientific community really vibrant and we also need good faculty for this which will be available once all these systems are put in place,” ,” Kasturirangan said.He said the NRF will address the biggest lacuna in the present education system: The lack of a coherent direction for planning and implementation of research at the university level. Besides providing funding, NRF will also take care of the need to seed and build research capacity in universities and colleges through a formal mechanism of mentoring that will be instituted.And, the panel envisages not only strengthening the presently weak support that subjects like social sciences and humanities receive, but to also bring in cohesion among the various research endeavours of multidisciplinary character.The NRF will encompass the four broad areas—sciences, engineering and technology, humanities and social sciences—which will be funded. Proposed to be an autonomous body, formation of NRF will require an amendment to the Constitution.The agency won’t be interfering with funding from other specialised agencies like the department of science and technology (DST), department of biotechnology (DBT) and so on.“This should not be looked at as another body. This will be an integral part of the overall changes being made. The masters and PhD levels are being strengthened with masters’ degree also having strong research component. Students will have three routes to get into masters: a one-year degree, a two-year degree, and the integrated five-year degree,” Kasturirangan said.