National Fellowships are awarded to eminent Indian Social Scientists in recognition to their scholarly contributions and providing opportunities to engage themselves in full-time research that have the potential to contribute in advancement of knowledge in social sciences.

Eligibility

• Renowned retired Indian social scientists who have not availed of ICSSR National Fellowship earlier, are eligible to be nominated as described below.
• The nominees should have outstanding academic work and a significant amount of high-quality research publications to their credit.
• Senior Government and defence officers of not less than 25 years of regular service in any of social science disciplines and demonstrable research experience through publications of books/research papers/reports can also be nominated.
• A fellow must affiliate himself/herself to an ICSSR Research Institute/Regional Centre, Institutes of national importance, approved by MoE/government research institute/public funded university including deemed university of his/her choice. Funds are disbursed through the affiliating/administering institution.

Duration And Value

• The duration of fellowship shall be for two years and no extension will be considered.
• The duration of the fellowship is for two years only.
• The value of the fellowship is Rs.60, 000 p.m. and contingency grant is Rs.60, 000/-p.a. irrespective of the pensionary benefit.

Nomination Procedure

• Nominations are invited by the ICSSR from regular Vice-Chancellors of public funded central and state Universities, Directors of the ICSSR Research Institutes/Regional Centres, present and former Council Members and National Fellows of the ICSSR.
• Nominating individuals should not forward more than two nominations against a Call. All nominations are to be accompanied by curriculum vitae of the scholar along with abstracts of 10 best publications and a 1000 words research proposal. The nominations should reach the In-charge, RFS Division, Indian Council of Social Science Research, Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, New Delhi 110067 before the last date given in the Call.
• Direct applications for National Fellowships will not be considered.

Important Points

Acceptance of offer

The scholar has to join the fellowship within three months of the date of the award letter by submitting all required documents through the affiliating institution. This may be extended in exceptional circumstances by the ICSSR.

Instalment details

• The first-year fellowship and contingency will be released in two equal instalments. The first instalment will be released after receiving the Grant-in-aid-Bill (GIB) and the second after receiving a Six-Monthly Progress report along with the statement of expenditure.
• The second-year fellowship and contingency grant will be released in three instalments. The first instalment of six-month fellowship will be released on receipt of the Grant-in-Aid Bill (GIB). The second instalment of 03 months fellowship will be released on receipt of a satisfactory Progress Report of next six months in the prescribed format along with the Statement of Account. The final instalment of remaining fellowship along with contingency will be released after receiving the final report and its acceptance by the ICSSR and Statement of Accounts with Utilization Certificate in GFR-12A Form of the entire sanctioned amount of fellowship duly signed by the competent authority of the affiliating institution. However, in case of non-public funded institution, the final instalment of fellowship will be released on receipt of the Audited Statement of Accounts with Utilization Certificate in GFR-12A Form and verification of the documents by the ICSSR.
• The 7.5% overhead charges to the public funded affiliating institution will be released only after verification of the documents by the ICSSR.

Research outcome

• During the course of the fellowship, the fellow is required to publish at least two research papers in peer-reviewed research journals on the theme of the research undertaken.
• The Copyright of the manuscript of final report will rest with the ICSSR. The ICSSR reserves all rights to publish the fellowship report funded by it, provided the work is recommended for publication by Expert/Experts. The scholars can get it published themselves only after seeking permission from ICSSR.
• The scholar shall acknowledge ICSSR’s support in all publications resulting from the research output of the fellowship.

Other terms and conditions

• During the tenure of fellowship, the fellow will be governed by the rules of the affiliating institution in all matters including TA/DA, holidays/leave and contingency grant, etc. However, the duration and amount of fellowship will not exceed twenty-four months.
• While accepting any fellowship from the ICSSR, a fellow should not accept any other fellowship or research project or regular assignment from any other institution.
• The scholar should not have been subjected to any disciplinary/legal action/proceedings/financial penalties in his/her career/ research career.