Bangladesh has long recognised the value of acquiring advanced training abroad. Over the years, public funds have supported postgraduate study and research through a number of government-backed schemes, including science fellowships and overseas scholarships for university teachers. These investments matter as they help develop skilled researchers, expose scholars to stronger research environments, and connect Bangladesh to global knowledge networks. But the design of these schemes remains partial.
In most cases, the public purse pays for tuition and maintenance, and the scholar goes abroad, studies, publishes research, and returns, or sometimes does not return, immediately. This makes the individual highly benefitted. The country may also benefit in the long run if the scholars do return, apply their skills within an institutional setting, and contribute to sustained, locally rooted research ecosystems. However, the pathway between funding one person and strengthening the research capacity of Bangladesh remains too weak and too dependent on chance. That is where reform is needed.
Bangladesh should move from funding isolated overseas PhDs to funding structured doctoral partnerships that build institutional capacity at home while the student is still abroad. Put simply, the aim should no longer be to only produce a doctorate. It should be to produce a doctorate, a research link, a publication stream, and a stronger Bangladeshi institution at the same time.
Publicly funded overseas PhD scholars should not be academically detached from Bangladesh during the years of their doctoral training. Each scholar should be attached—before departure—to a host department, university, or recognised research institute in Bangladesh. Each should have a Bangladeshi co-supervisor alongside the overseas supervisory team, who would join supervisory meetings online regularly. The scholar should also maintain formal Bangladeshi institutional affiliation throughout their PhD, and that affiliation should appear in their publications. Where the local supervisor makes a genuine intellectual contribution, this should be recognised through co-authorship of scholarly or creative works.
International higher education already makes use of joint supervision, sandwich doctoral models, and hybrid supervisory meetings. In many fields, especially those involving Bangladesh-based fieldwork, environmental monitoring, public health, education, or social development, there is no reason such arrangements cannot be built into public doctoral awards from the outset.
This would not require a dramatic increase in cost, either. The largest expense in overseas PhD support is tuition and student maintenance. In comparison, the additional elements needed are modest: light support for the Bangladeshi co-supervisor, coordination, and one or two short visits by the student to the Bangladeshi host institution during the degree. The visits could include seminars, field activities, mentoring of junior students, and work on joint publications. For research projects rooted in Bangladesh, this would be especially valuable.
Thus, one publicly funded PhD would no longer support only one student. It would also help train a local supervisor in international doctoral practice, strengthen a department or research centre, generate co-authored papers with Bangladeshi affiliation, and create a living research link that can continue after the doctorate is earned. This is not simply about sending talent abroad, but also about turning that process into brain circulation rather than a narrow and uncertain form of brain gain.
This matters because Bangladesh has already invested substantially in research fellowships. The 2024-2025 national budget speech reported that 760 individuals had received support under the then Bangabandhu Science and Technology Fellowship Trust for study and research at home and abroad, with 515 having completed their awards and 245 continuing. This shows that Bangladesh has invested in advanced training. The question is whether that investment is extracting enough national value while scholars are still in training. The answer, at present, is no.
A revised national framework could change that. The University Grants Commission (UGC), together with the Ministry of Education and other relevant ministries and public bodies, should create a common set of minimum conditions for all government-funded overseas PhD schemes. These conditions should include a formal Bangladeshi host institution, a local co-supervisor, participation in scheduled online supervisory discussions, visible Bangladeshi affiliation in scholarly outputs, and at least one structured engagement visit during the degree. Oversight does not need to be heavy. Publications, supervisor confirmation, and a brief annual update should be enough.
This proposal is not about forcing return, nor is it about adding bureaucracy for its own sake. It is about recognising a simple truth: national research capacity should begin to grow during the pursuit of a PhD, not just afterwards. If public money is being used to support higher study abroad, then public policy should ensure that Bangladeshi institutions are part of that knowledge journey from the beginning.
Bangladesh now has an opportunity to revisit how overseas doctoral support is designed. A new government often reviews inherited policies, funding priorities, and institutional arrangements. Now is therefore the right moment to move from a scholarship-focused mindset to a system-building mindset. The country does not need to spend significantly more, but make existing spending work harder. Funding PhDs in a way that also strengthens research supervision, publications, and institutions in Bangladesh would be far more valuable. Bangladesh should not fund only degrees abroad, but also fund national research capacity through them.
Dr Mo Hoque is senior lecturer in Hydrogeology and Environmental Geoscience at the University of Portsmouth, UK. He can be reached at [email protected].
Dr Ashraf Dewan is research director at the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University, Australia. He can be reached at [email protected].
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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