Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) Scheme

Why is in news? Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh presents ’INSPIRE’ awards to 60 Start-Ups, financial support to over 53,000 students

• Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research' (INSPIRE) scheme is one of the flagship programmes of Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India, for attraction of talent to Science.
• The basic objective of INSPIRE is to communicate to the youth of the country the excitements of creative pursuit of science, attract talent to the study of science at an early age and thus build the required critical human resource pool for strengthening and expanding the Science & Technology system and R&D base.
• The INSPIRE Awards - MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspirations and Knowledge), being executed by DST with National Innovation Foundation – India (NIF), an autonomous body of DST.
• It aims to motivate students in the age group of 10-15 years and studying in classes 6 to 10. Rs. 10,000/- is given as an award to shortlisted ideas of students.
• The objective of the scheme is to target one million original ideas/innovations rooted in science and societal applications to foster a culture of creativity and innovative thinking among school children.