Post-Doctoral Fellowships are awarded to young and mid-career Indian social science researchers who have completed their Ph.D. and have acumen for conducting globally competitive quality research. The ICSSR promotes and supports evidence-based cutting-edge research having potential to provide solutions to the challenges to development by exploring the themes and subthemes identified by ICSSR.

Eligibility

• The researcher should be an Indian citizen and should not be more than 45 years of age as on the last date of application. There shall be an age relaxation of 5 years for SC/ST/Persons with Benchmark Disability candidates.
• The scholar must possess a Ph.D. Degree at the time of application and his/her competence to conduct research must be reflected in his/her publications.
• The researcher must affiliate himself/herself to a public funded Indian university/ deemed-to-be-university/college having approved Ph.D. programme, an ICSSR Research Institute/Institutes of national importance approved by MoE/government research institutes. Funds shall be disbursed to the selected fellows through the affiliating institution.
• The selected fellow has to work under the guidance of a senior social scientist (not below the level of an Associate Professor with proven research supervision experience and publications). The supervisor should be a serving faculty in the affiliating institution. The selection of the supervisor is subject to the approval of the ICSSR.
• Defaulters of any previous fellowship/project/grant of the ICSSR will not be eligible for consideration.
• A fellow is not entitled for the same fellowship more than once.

Duration And Value

• Post-Doctoral Fellowship is a full-time research engagement.
• The duration of fellowship shall be for two years and no extension will be considered.
• The value of fellowship is Rs.31,000/- per month and contingency grant of Rs.20,000/- per annum and will be in line with the directives of the Ministry of Education from time to time.

Application Procedure

• Applications will be invited through open advertisement on ICSSR website and its social media platforms.
• The procedure for the award of the fellowships will include evaluation and interaction/presentation of applications by the panel of subject experts in multiple phases.

Important Points

Acceptance of offer

• The scholar has to join the fellowship preferably within the time given in the award letter by submitting all required documents through the affiliating institution. This may be extended by the ICSSR in exceptional circumstances.
• The fellowship will be sanctioned initially for a period of one year, effective from the date of joining Fellowship by the scholar. The renewal of the Fellowship for the subsequent year shall be subject to the receipt of satisfactory Annual Progress Report and statement of account for the fellowship released for first year.

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 instalment after receiving a satisfactory Six-Monthly Progress Report in the prescribed format along with the Statement of Account to be issued by the Affiliating Institution.
• 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 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 the submission of the audited statement of accounts with utilization certificate in GFR-12A Form and verification of the documents by the ICSSR.

Progress Monitoring

• Regular monitoring of Fellowship is done on the basis of Six Monthly and Annual Progress Reports in the prescribed format submitted by the scholar. In case of delayed Progress Reports, the scholar may be asked to give the justification of the delay on which the final decision shall be taken by the ICSSR. The scholar may be asked to furnish an Undertaking specifying the date of final report submission to the ICSSR.
• The fellowship may be discontinued if research progress is found unsatisfactory or any ICSSR rule is violated and the fellow has to reimburse the total fellowship disbursed by the ICSSR till the date of termination of fellowship.
• The ICSSR may ask for annual presentation/mid-term appraisal of the research work.

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.