AICTE-INAE Distinguished Visiting Professorship Scheme

What is the AICTE-INAE Distinguished Visiting Professorship Scheme?

The AICTE-INAE Distinguished Visiting Professorship Scheme is a joint programme of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) that brings seasoned engineers and industry experts into engineering colleges as visiting professors. AICTE is a statutory body under the Ministry of Education, and INAE is the country's apex body of distinguished engineers, so the scheme is designed to close the gap between classroom teaching and the real needs of industry.

According to INAE, a Distinguished Visiting Professor (DVP) shares the state of the art of industry, the industrial working environment and current R&D needs with students and faculty. Beyond guest lectures, a DVP guides student projects, helps update the curriculum, and helps set up cooperative academia-industry programmes at the host college.

What the scheme is trying to do

• Expose engineering students and teachers to real industrial practice and live R&D problems.
• Use the experience of senior engineers, including retired experts, who might otherwise not be in the teaching system.
• Strengthen the link between AICTE-approved colleges and industry through project guidance and joint programmes.

Who is eligible for the Distinguished Visiting Professorship?

A person can be nominated as a Distinguished Visiting Professor if they:

• Hold at least a bachelor's degree in engineering or an equivalent qualification.
• Are between 45 and 75 years of age; the Selection Committee may consider exceptions.
• Have a minimum of 10 years of industry experience with distinguished accomplishments such as patents, products, publications or awards.
• Are a retired INAE Fellow; such Fellows also qualify.

A host institution is eligible if:

• It is an AICTE-approved engineering college or institute.

Who cannot apply: students and research scholars cannot apply for a personal benefit under this scheme, it is not a scholarship or fellowship. Colleges that are not AICTE-approved are not eligible to host a DVP. A person who has already completed a DVP tenure cannot reapply. Because the appointment involves a host institution, an individual expert cannot receive the professorship in the abstract; a college must nominate or agree to host them.

How much benefit does the scheme provide?

According to INAE, the financial terms of the scheme are:

• Honorarium of Rs 10,000 per lecture day.
• Travel for in-person visits, reimbursed at economy (Y-class) airfare, actual rail fare, or approved road-travel rates.
• Local support from the host institution — guest-house accommodation and conveyance during the visit.

For the online mode, only the honorarium is paid and no travel is reimbursed, because there is no journey involved.

How many visits and for how long?

The scheme is structured around short, repeated engagements rather than a full-time posting:

• In-person mode: up to two visits per semester, each of a maximum of three consecutive days.
• Online mode: up to two sessions per semester, each of a maximum of three days; if the days are not consecutive they are to fall within a two-week window.

The appointment is initially for one year and is extendable up to a maximum of five years, subject to annual performance reviews. A DVP may be associated with at most two institutions across the whole tenure, and a break of up to two years is permitted mid-tenure.

How to apply for the Distinguished Visiting Professorship

The scheme has no citizen self-registration portal; it works through nomination to INAE. To be considered:

1. Prepare the nomination, the proposed professor and the AICTE-approved host institution agree on the association, and the professor's detailed CV is compiled showing the degree, 10+ years of experience and distinguished accomplishments.
2. Fill the prescribed DVP application form issued by INAE, with the host institution's endorsement that it will provide the guest house, conveyance and academic setting.
3. Submit the nomination to INAE headquarters by the announced deadline. INAE issues a fresh call periodically; for example, the 2022-23 call closed on 15 April 2022, so intending applicants should watch the INAE website for the current window.
4. Selection is done by INAE's Selection Committee, after which the appointment letter is issued for the first year.

Because deadlines and the exact application format change from cycle to cycle, the authoritative source is the DVP scheme page on the INAE website. Amounts and rules quoted here reflect the scheme terms published by INAE and should be re-checked against the current call before applying.

Who runs the scheme and where to get help

The scheme is administered by INAE in partnership with AICTE. The point of contact for nominations, forms and deadlines is the INAE Secretariat, whose details and the live DVP call are published on inae.in. Colleges interested in hosting a DVP should route their proposal through their institutional office to INAE rather than through any third party, since there is no fee and no agent involved in this academic scheme.

How to check your application status

There is no online tracking dashboard or reference number system for a Distinguished Visiting Professorship nomination, since the process runs through direct correspondence with INAE rather than a self-service portal. Both the nominated expert and the host institution can follow up in these ways:

1. Check the INAE website first. Before writing to anyone, revisit the DVP scheme page at inae.in to confirm whether the current call is still open, has closed for review, or has been decided. INAE typically announces the outcome of a call as a fresh notice on the same page rather than notifying every applicant individually.
2. Contact the INAE Secretariat directly. Since the nomination form is submitted to INAE headquarters, the Secretariat is the only authority that can confirm receipt and status. The institution's office that originally forwarded the nomination should make this follow-up, since the Secretariat corresponds with the host institution rather than with the individual expert in most cases.
3. Route the query through the host institution, not the expert alone. Because the appointment is a joint arrangement between the expert and the college, an institution's administrative or R&D cell that handled the original paperwork usually keeps a copy of the submission date and reference correspondence, which speeds up any status check.
4. Expect a slower, non-digital response. As an academy-run academic honour rather than a mass benefit scheme, DVP status queries are answered by email or letter rather than SMS or an online tracker, so a reply can take longer than a typical government helpline.
5. Watch for the appointment letter as the actual status update. Selection is confirmed only when INAE issues the appointment letter for the first year; until that letter arrives, the nomination should be treated as pending rather than rejected, since INAE does not always send a separate rejection notice for every unsuccessful nomination.

Common reasons for rejection

Because this is a joint nomination rather than an individual online application, most rejections happen at the eligibility or documentation stage before a nomination even reaches the Selection Committee.

• Candidate does not meet the age or experience criteria. A proposed professor younger than 45 or older than 75, or with fewer than 10 years of industry experience, does not meet the base eligibility, and the Selection Committee only makes exceptions on age in unusual, clearly justified cases. The fix is to nominate a candidate who genuinely falls in the 45-75 band with a documented decade or more of relevant industry work, unless the person is a retired INAE Fellow, who qualifies separately.
• CV does not demonstrate "distinguished accomplishments." A generic resume listing job titles without evidence of patents, products, publications or awards is a weak nomination, since the scheme is explicitly meant for recognised achievers, not simply senior employees. The fix is to attach concrete proof, patent numbers, named products, publication lists or award citations, rather than describing experience in general terms.
• Host institution is not AICTE-approved. A nomination from a college that lacks current AICTE approval is not eligible to host a DVP regardless of how strong the candidate is. The fix is to confirm the institution's AICTE approval status before starting the nomination, not after submission.
• Missing or weak institutional endorsement. A nomination without a clear, signed commitment from the host institution to provide guest-house accommodation, local conveyance and the academic setting for lectures and project guidance is incomplete, since the scheme depends on the institution actually hosting the visits. The fix is to secure a formal, specific endorsement letter from the institution's head, not just a verbal agreement.
• Submission after the call deadline. INAE opens nomination windows periodically and closes them on a fixed date, so a nomination filed after the window shuts is not considered for that cycle. The fix is to track the current call on the INAE website closely, since the exact opening and closing dates change from cycle to cycle and are not announced far in advance.
• Candidate or institution exceeds the tenure or association limits. A person who has already completed a full DVP tenure, or who would be associated with a third institution beyond the two-institution limit across their tenure, does not qualify for a fresh nomination. The fix is to check the candidate's prior DVP history before nominating them again.
• Treating it as an individual scholarship application. Nominations submitted by a student, research scholar, or an individual expert without any host institution attached are rejected outright, since the scheme has no provision for a personal grant outside the institution-expert pairing. The fix is to always submit the nomination jointly, with the institution as an active party, never as a solo application.