Abstract
In India, nurses and midwives make up more than 30% of the national healthcare workforce (World Health Organisation, 2016). The country has also witnessed a phenomenal growth in the uptake of nursing education with an increase during the last 8 years of graduate nursing schools (285–3215), BSc colleges (30–1936), and MSc nursing colleges (10–643) (Indian Nursing Council, 2019). Many of the BSc and MSc colleges are now moving to health universities and deemed institutes. Academic nursing is also developing apace and the University Grant Commission of India now requires that university lecturers must hold, as a minimum, a master's degree in their subject and preferably a PhD. To meet these requirements there has been a growth in universities offering PhD programmes, and a growth in the number of Indian nursing academics pursuing a Doctorate. A national consortium for PhD in nursing was established by the Indian Nursing Council in collaboration with the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Bangalore in the year 2006 (Indian Nursing Council, 2019), and has seen a total of 74 PhDs in Nursing as of November 2018 (Indian Nursing Council, 2019). This is welcome, but is a figure that requires a substantial increase to continue to develop a cadre of PhD qualified nurse academics, and nurse clinicians.