The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), since its inception, has been pursuing basic research as well as technology development with equal rigour. Over the years, a robust institutional framework has been put in place. Today, apart from industrial units, DAE runs 4 major research centres and 7 grant-in-aid institutions.
While in the research centres the focus is more on technology and product development, the grant-in-aid institutions concentrate relatively more on basic research. In the process, the research centres and the grant-in-aid institutions have together provided high caliber technologists as well as scientists to the Department but for which India�s spectacular strides in the field of nuclear sciences and their applications would not have been possible.
A key element of the success achieved in the manpower development is the visionary initiative of Dr. Homi Bhabha who set up the prestigious BARC training school in the year 1956. In addition to the training school at Trombay, training schools have been set up at other places as affiliates of BARC training school. The BARC training school and its affiliates have been running a remarkably successful Orientation Course for Engineering graduates and Science post-graduates (OCES). The grant-in-aid institutions, apart from carrying out research, have been running pre-doctoral and doctoral programmes, which have helped in producing high quality scientific research personnel. It is in this respect of an in-house human resource development programme that the DAE has been unique