New Delhi: Students, who will be able to bag research internships in any industry in the fourth year of their undergraduate programme, will get stipend, insurance and academic credits.

As per the University Grants Commission's guidelines, which have been shared with the higher educational institutions, the companies where the students will do internships, will provide them with a fixed amount of money.

The higher educational institutions will have to appoint nodal officers for research internships who will make agreements with various companies for the programme.

Besides, higher educational institutions may also search for group internship opportunities.

The research internship will be done in the fourth year of the Four Year Undergraduate Programme. For every student, an internship supervisor will be appointed who will help the wards to complete their projects on time.

For the draft of these guidelines, the UGC had sought suggestions from its stakeholders.

UGC chairman M Jagdish Kumar said that as per the National Education Policy 2020, it has implemented a credit framework at the undergraduate level.

He said that the internship has been made mandatory to increase the employability of the students.

For deciding on a research internship, a survey will be conducted by the educational institutions regarding the requirements in the local market. Based on the survey and courses being conducted, Internship projects will be prepared.

The educational institutions will have to publish information about internship projects and mentors for this purpose.

The UGC is of the view that joint research projects should be encouraged at the university level and University colleges should have student career counselling cells.

The career counselling should have also had representatives from the industry, it said.

For implementation of professional and skill developmental programmes, professionals related to the industries should also be roped in.

As per the UGC guidelines, a cluster of state-level universities, colleges and industries should be created to facilitate students of higher educational institutions doing joint research.

The student's scores will get collected in the 'Academic Bank of Credit' implemented under the NEP.

On the recommendation of the company in which they are doing internship, the tenure of the programme can be increased.

The UGC chairman said that the higher educational institutions will have to make arrangements on their portal for API integration so that experts from companies or agencies can register on it.

Internship projects will be linked to students' skill development courses.