bhubaneswar a state government initiative to reward quality phds is leading nowhere after a review of the performance of the higher education department in june chief minister naveen patnaik announced that that phd theses produced by state universities would get financial incentives if these get published by the top 400 internationallyacclaimed universities in the world the top 400 universities would be decided on the basis of time magazine ranking government sources said the idea was found to be illconceived as the universities as such dont publish phd theses only journals publish the research works after deliberations at the departmental level it was found that it would be difficult to make a list of top journals a government officer said the higher education department tweaked the idea the department is now working on another plan under which any odisha native who manages to get phd from any of the worlds top 400 campuses would get monetary incentive the department has mooted a proposal to reward rs 5 lakh to the scholar the sources said the higher education department is planning to advertise every year inviting applications from scholars enrolled for phds during a given time period just like various scholarship schemes higher education minister pradeep panigrahy said the government wants to incentivize quality research work the department is working out on the appropriate modalities he said but declined to elaborate educationists feel there should be more clarity on the government initiative fakir mohan university vicechancellor s p adhikary said though it is a good idea to provide financial incentives for quality research work the government should come out with a doable method there should be measurable and objective parameters to identify quality research work he said santosh tripathy president of utkal university teachers association said the governments intension of financial reward for research is welcome however the policy should be such that good works done in state universities also get recognized he said odisha universities produce around 800 phd theses annually