United States-India Educational Foundation, offers Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships valid for a maximum period of 12 months, designed for Indian scholars and professionals in the early stages of their research careers.
The Fellowship provides access to some of the finest resources in your area of interest and helps build long-term collaborative relationships with US faculty and institutions.
Though applications from all fields are considered, select fields are given preference. The fellowships provide round-trip economy class air travel from India to the US, a monthly stipend, accident and sickness programme for exchanges as per US Government guidelines, a modest settling-in allowance, and a professional allowance.
Applicants should be scholars and professionals with a PhD from an Indian institution within the past four years.
Your work should have been published in reputed journals and demonstrate evidence of superior academic and professional achievement. You need to be preferably under 45 years of age. Details at www.usief.org.in/FIC-Fulbright-Nehru-Postdoctoral-Research-Fellowships.aspx.
CSIR’s scholarship
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research offers CSIR-Nehru Science Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Scheme to help young researchers with innovative ideas and provide them with training and research opportunities in niche areas of basic science, engineering, medicine and agriculture.
A 100 fellowships are provided every year to promising fresh PhD holders for working in CSIR laboratories. The grant covers Rs 35,000 per month plus house rent allowance and a contingency grant of Rs 3 lakh per annum.
PhD holders within three years of award of their degree under the age of 32 can apply. The grant is valid for two years and extendable for a maximum of one more year based on outstanding performance and recommendation from the director of the CSIR lab. Details at www.csirhrdg.res.in/skhilnani@csirhrdg.res.in.
Dr DS Kothari Postdoctoral Fellowship
The University Grants Commission offers the Dr DS Kothari Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme in sciences, medical and engineering sciences. These fellowships are open for full-time research work to young researches preferably below 35 years of age. You should have received your PhD or submitted your thesis.
The monthly stipend will be Rs 28-30,000 as applicable with an annual increase of Rs 1,000. Besides this, two more funds are also given — a monthly bridging fellowship of Rs 22,000 and a higher fellowship of Rs 30,000. Details at www.ugcdskpdf.unipune.ac.in.
You can also consider other scholarships such as Department of Science and Technology’s Scholarship Scheme for Women Scientists and Technologists. Says Krithika Gokulnath, WOP fellowship awardee, “The whole business of fellowships is competitive. Time factor is important because the results are announced very late.”