HYDERABAD: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Friday announced a funding programme for doctoral research (Ph.D) to encourage quality academic research in the country and increase the faculty talent pool. The company will fund about 200 doctoral candidates in reputed academic institutions over a period of five years.

Announcing the TCS Research Scholar programme at a press conference here, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the company N. Chandrasekaran said TCS Fellows would pursue research in various aspects of computer science.

The announcement was made on the sidelines of two-day Sangam, the TCS’ annual academic conclave “Education Excellence – The Challenge of the Times”, being held here from Friday. “There is an urgent need for focused research, when business models are changing fast with new technologies and the TCS programme will encourage exploration of new ideas by funding young researchers”, the CEO said. Candidates availing TCS funding would have a choice to join the company but there would not be any compulsion as the support was mainly aimed at generating a talent base useful for the industry in general and TCS in particular, Head of Global HR of TCS Ajoy Mukherjee stated.