Mumbai (PTI): There is an urgent need to launch a 'National PhD Initiative' in a mission mode to increase the engineering and science PhDs output and realise India's potential of becoming a global technology leader, according to a study on higher education.

The study carried out by IIT-Mumbai professors Rangan Banerjee and Vinayak P Muley of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering, said a series of initiatives are required to attract our brightest students to pursue research and reach international standard in order to meet our future requirements.

'National PhD Initiative' is urgently needed to increase the number of engineering PhDs from the present abysmal 1,000 a year to at least 10,00 a year for the future success of Indian industry and growth of engineering education in India.

The Observer Research Foundation(ORF), a NGO policy think tank which initiated the study noted that India's doctorate degrees are less than one per cent of graduate engineering degrees while this percentage is much higher for most of the other countries studied 9 per cent USA, 10 per cent UK, 8 per cent Germany and 3 per cent Korea.

The initiative will only work if taken up on mission mode with special treatment to PhD students with all research facilities and modern offices, Rs 10-12 lakh fellowships per student in a year and industry support for 5000 students. It also suggests establishment of National PhD Initiative steering committee with representatives from government, academia and industry, Banerjee said.