In a landmark push to stem academic brain drain and stimulate domestic research patents, the University Grants Commission (UGC) unveiled a comprehensive Tk 450 crore research fund dedicated to public university laboratories.
The grant framework allocates priority funding to competitive proposals focused on saline-tolerant seed genomics, microgrid battery storage, and localized natural language processing models for South Asian languages.
"Our universities must evolve from testing centers into primary innovation engines. This allocation guarantees sustained funding for doctoral researchers over four-year evaluation cycles," stated the UGC member for planning.
Recipients across Dhaka University, BUET, and Rajshahi University will gain direct access to international peer-review databases and cloud-computing superclusters hosted under the national data infrastructure.
