Bala Krishnamoorthy started thinking of moving back to India recently, finding it hard to find a job in the US city his wife works in. As assistant professor in the mathematics department at Washington State University, Pullman, US, he had been planning a visit to the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi to explore opportunities when he heard of a unique meet.
The event, called Young Researchers Meet held at Brown University in May 15, was an attempt by India?s premier science institutes to lure young mathematics and computer science researchers from recession-hit US universities back home where they grapple with a faculty crunch. At least 15 new institutes including the IITs and five Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) are finding it difficult to get enough good quality faculty in mathematics and computer science which see fewer doctorates every year compared to other subjects.
?As the size of endowments for private universities in the US has gone down, there are likely to be fewer positions available, said G Rangarajan, chairman of mathematics department at the IISc. ?We hope to leverage on that,? he added. Rangarajan coordinated the event which attempted to woo back the math scholars.
?The economic situation in the US as a whole is still not very encouraging and most universities, especially the public ones, are in real bad shape,? said Krishnamoorthy, an alumnus of IIT-Madras, who did his PhD from University of North Carolina. He has been working at WSU since 2004 and his wife has a non-academic job in Portland, 350 miles away.
?It has been hard for me to find an academic job in or around Portland, or for both of us to find reasonable jobs in a third city. If I could find a reasonable academic job in India in a big city, my wife should be able to find a suitable job in the same place,? he said.
?The participants appeared convinced that they will not be disadvantaged if they return to India,? said Rangarajan. ?People don?t realise that after the Sixth Pay Commission, salaries have become very competitive,? he added.
According to him, monthly earnings of an assistant professor, an associate professor and a professor in India after monetising facilities such as residential quarters on campus would work out to Rs 67,000, Rs 91,000 and Rs 1,25,000 respectively.
Even 10 years ago, such an initiative would not have been possible, but salaries and facilities available in India have since improved, said R Balasubramanian, director of the Chennai-based Institute of Mathematical Sciences, who participated in the event. According to him, there is a requirement for at least 100 faculty members in these new institutes over the next couple of years. ?Since IISERs are going to be the IITs of basic science, we do hope the cream would enter them.? Manindra Agrawal, head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT-Kanpur, told FE that India was not producing sufficient PhDs. We have to look outside India to meet the requirement,? he said.
?In a new institute, I would have a role in shaping up the corresponding department,? said Subrahmanyam Kalyanasundaram, a PhD student at Georgia Institute of Technology who plans to return to India to teach after a year of post doctoral research. ?I was happy I attended the meet and presented my work. I have a better feeling about returning to India.?