D. D. Kosambi Research Fellowship Scheme(DDKFS)

Overview

About DDKFS

The D. D. Kosambi Research Fellowship Scheme pays Goan scholars to study Goa. The Directorate of Art and Culture, Government of Goa, administers it, and has application forms out right now for the financial year 2026-2027 in the junior, senior and post-doctoral categories (junior category application form 2026-2027). This is a researcher's award rather than a student scholarship: it begins after a master's degree, it is won on a research proposal, and what the Directorate has actually sanctioned under it ranges from Rs 36,000 to Rs 2,00,000 for a year's work (D. D. Kosambi Research Fellowship beneficiaries, Directorate of Art and Culture).

Goa built this fellowship to buy new research about itself, and its subject test is territorial rather than disciplinary. The notification funds work on the society, economy, polity, history, art and culture of Goa, accepts only topics closely connected to Goa, and leaves anything short of that to the committee's judgement (D. D. Kosambi Research Fellowship Scheme, Official Gazette Series I No. 39). A first-rate proposal on medieval Deccan trade with no Goan anchor is outside it.

The name alone points somewhere wider, which is why the boundary matters. The same Directorate separately endows a chair in D. D. Kosambi's name at Goa University in the field of Inter Disciplinary Studies, whose focus list stretches across History, Science, Political Economy, Literature, Mathematics, Foreign Policies and Ecology (Citizen's Charter 2022-2023, Directorate of Art and Culture). The fellowship inherits none of that range. It funds work on Goa.

One repeal separates today's fellowship from the one Goa first framed. The Government of Goa framed it on 14 January 2009 with two fellowships a year, a junior category for post-graduates below 30 and a senior category for Ph.D. holders, paying Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,000 and Rs 9,000 to Rs 12,000 a month respectively (Official Gazette, Series I No. 43, 22 January 2009). A new notification signed at Panaji on 27 November 2015 repealed that text outright and replaced it with the three categories and the flat monthly ceilings the scheme still runs on, set to remain in force up to 31 March 2021 (Official Gazette, Series I No. 39, 24 December 2015).

Its life is extended by amendment rather than left to lapse, and the current end date is a long way off. Notifications signed on 30 May 2022, 27 April 2023 and 24 May 2024 each rewrote clause 1 (ii) to carry the scheme one more year, to 31 March 2023, then 2024, then 2025 (Official Gazette, Series I No. 9, 2 June 2022; Series I No. 5, 4 May 2023; Series I No. 10, 6 June 2024). The amendment now in force, dated 23 April 2025, jumps the horizon three years at once: the scheme runs up to 31 March 2028 (Official Gazette, Series I No. 5, 2 May 2025). Forms dated 2026-2027 are therefore what you would expect to find, not an anomaly.

The scheme is also being used. A department reply tabled in the Goa Legislative Assembly counts 7 beneficiaries in 2022-2023, 8 in 2023-2024 and 7 in 2024-2025, with the current year still under process, and notes against those rows that 50% of the sanctioned amount is shared with a scholarship scheme (Annexure, schemes in operation, Department of Art and Culture). Those counts sit above the three fresh awards a year the scheme caps, and the annexure does not break them down.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

No calendar month is fixed for the round. The scheme's dated record is a chain of notifications, and the application window opens whenever the advertisement runs.

The live signal is the form rather than the gazette. Application forms for the financial year 2026-2027 are published on the Directorate's scheme page in the junior, senior and post-doctoral categories (post-doctoral category application form 2026-2027). The window itself then runs from the newspaper advertisement rather than from the date the form went up, at 30 days from that advertisement (Citizen's Charter 2022-2023).

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Your highest degree and your age together decide which category you apply in, and the qualification is the harder of the two tests. A master's degree opens the junior category up to 35 years of age, measured at the time of application, and the senior category above that age; a completed Ph.D. opens the post-doctoral category, where the notification sets no age ceiling at all (2015 notification, Official Gazette Series I No. 39). Age is read in completed years, which is how the form asks for it, at question 12 (junior category application form 2026-2027).

Residence is the condition most likely to catch an outsider, and it is nowhere in the eligibility clause. It arrives through the paperwork instead: every applicant has to attach a fifteen years certificate of residence in Goa, or an equivalent proof such as a school leaving certificate (Citizen's Charter 2022-2023), and the form asks for your taluka and your constituency alongside your address (junior category application form 2026-2027). A scholar with a Goa address of three years and a research interest in Goa does not clear that.

The degree requirement, and only the degree requirement, can bend. Where a scholar is exceptionally talented with a proven record and authentic work to their credit, the rules on educational qualifications may be relaxed on the Selection Committee's recommendation (2015 notification). Nothing in that clause reaches the age bands or the residence proof.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Holding a job is not a bar, and the form settles the point by asking about it. Question 16 asks whether the project will be done on a full time basis and, if not, for details of your profession (senior category application form 2026-2027). A lecturer holding a college post is inside the scheme; the answer changes the rate, not the eligibility.

What does lock a scholar out is a 10 year cooling period, and it is the Directorate's own. Once the project is submitted, this Department's other fellowships close to that fellow for 10 years, in every category, and a grace period or an extension granted on the work adds nothing to the money (2015 notification). Read the trigger, because it is the date the project goes in and not the date the tenure ends, so a fellow who finishes early starts the clock early.

A second clause runs alongside it: the fellowship goes to a scholar once in a lifetime under each category (2015 notification). Together they make a junior to senior progression a decade-long wait rather than a natural next step.

Beyond those two, the notification publishes no income ceiling, no caste condition on eligibility and no bar on being registered for a degree elsewhere. The exposure is in the paperwork rather than the rules, because the Directorate's document list is longer than the summary listings suggest.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

A fellowship here is sanctioned as a term, not extended year by year. The maximum period is 2 years and the notification writes no renewal clause at all; a scholar who wants to work on Goa again under this scheme has the once in a lifetime rule and the 10 year bar to get past first (2015 notification). The single term that is not fixed at 2 years is the full time route, where the research period is whatever the selection committee decides (Citizen's Charter 2022-2023).

What you get

Award & benefits

Rates are set per month and per category, and the full time undertaking is the lever that moves them.

The junior rate has moved twice, and both moves were upward. The 2009 scheme paid the junior category Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,000 a month against a yearly band, and the senior category Rs 9,000 to Rs 12,000 (Official Gazette, Series I No. 43, 22 January 2009). The 2015 rewrite dropped the bands for a single ceiling, up to Rs 10,000 for the junior category and Rs 20,000 for senior and post-doctoral (Official Gazette, Series I No. 39, 24 December 2015). The Directorate's published service standard now carries up to Rs 15,000 for the junior category, alongside the up to Rs 30,000 full time rate that the 2015 text does not contain (Citizen's Charter 2022-2023).

The rate and the sanction are different numbers, because the quantum is assessed on the selection committee's recommendation after the project comes in. The Directorate's beneficiary list gives what was actually released.

The published list carries no entry at all for 2011-2012, and it shows the post-doctoral category filled exactly once, in 2016-17, the last year it covers (beneficiary list). A category being open is not a category being used.

Nowhere does the scheme text add a contingency, travel or publication grant on top of the monthly rate. The proposal format does ask you to cost field work and travel, hiring of services, books and journals, contingency, honorarium to research scholars and equipment (post-doctoral category application form 2026-2027). That budget is the case you are making for your quantum, not a second pot of money.

• Eligible scholars for the junior category shall be awarded a fellowship up to ₹ 15,000/- per month for a maximum period of 2 years, on a case-to-case basis.
• Eligible scholars for senior & post-doctoral categories shall be awarded a fellowship of ₹ 20,000/- per month for a maximum period of 2 years, on a case-to-case basis.
• However, the applicant who undertakes to complete the research work on a full-time basis may be awarded the scholarship upto ₹ 30,000/- per month. In such cases, the research period shall be as decided by the selection committee.
• Number of Fellowships
• A maximum of one fellowship in each category shall be awarded every year.
• NOTE: The amount of fellowship shall be assessed on the recommendation of the selection committee after the submission of his/her project.

What to prepare

Documents required

Two mandatory items on the Directorate's own form sit outside the summary listings, and both are financial. The form makes a PAN card number mandatory and asks for a photocopy of it, and it asks for a cheque copy or the first page of a passbook showing name, MICR and IFSC codes, with the account duly linked to the Aadhaar number (junior category application form 2026-2027). An account that is not linked cannot receive a sanctioned instalment.

The research proposal is the third item that decides the outcome, and it is not on the document checklist either. It has its own prescribed format, running to the project title, origin of the research problem, interdisciplinary relevance, a review of research in the subject at international and national level, the significance of the study, objectives, methodology, a year wise plan of work with targets, and any intended collaboration (post-doctoral category application form 2026-2027).

The slowest item to obtain is the fifteen years certificate of residence in Goa, and the birth certificate has to be a photocopy attested by a gazetted officer (Citizen's Charter 2022-2023). Neither is worth starting on the day an advertisement appears.

Step by step

How to apply

The Directorate opens the scheme by advertisement, not through a rolling portal. Its notification puts the duty plainly: every year the Department of Art and Culture releases a press advertisement inviting applications for the fellowship, and the committee constituted for the purpose picks the scholars (2015 notification, Official Gazette Series I No. 39). The Directorate's service standard gives that window a length: receipt of application is within 30 days from the date of advertisement in a newspaper (Citizen's Charter 2022-2023).

Pick the right form, because there are three of them and they are not interchangeable. The Directorate publishes a separate form per category for 2026-2027, numbered DDKJ for junior, DDKS for senior and DDKP for post-doctoral, each addressed to The Director, Directorate of Art and Culture, Sanskruti Bhavan, Patto, Panaji, and each carrying form charges of Rs 10 (junior category application form 2026-2027; senior category application form 2026-2027). Online is how myScheme classifies the mode, though no submission link sits behind that label (myScheme, DDKFS). The document to work with is therefore the Directorate's own form: fill it, sign it, and hand it in with the undertaking attached.

That undertaking is not a formality. The applicant declares the information correct and separately promises to return whatever money has already been drawn should any statement in the form prove false (senior category application form 2026-2027).

Following the File After You Hand It In

Keep the receipt. Each form carries a tear-off applicant's copy and an office copy acknowledging the Rs 10 form charge against an Online Form No. in the DDKJ, DDKS or DDKP series (junior category application form 2026-2027). That number is the only reference this scheme issues, so quote it in every follow-up.

Take the follow-up to the officer named for this scheme rather than to the front desk. The Directorate lists ACO II, on 0832-2404623 and at aco3-dac.goa@nic.in, as the officer to be contacted for the Kosambi fellowship (Citizen's Charter 2022-2023). Time the call against the published clock: the first instalment is due within 3 months from the last date of submission of a complete application, and later instalments follow on submission of the required documents (Citizen's Charter 2022-2023). Money that has not moved by then is a case to raise, and the same charter carries the department's grievance route for a file that stalls.

How winners are picked

Selection process

A committee decides, and the notification is thin on how. Government appoints a special committee to select the scholars, the committee it constitutes for that purpose does the choosing, and the quantum of the fellowship is assessed on the evaluation committee's recommendation after the project is submitted (2015 notification, Official Gazette Series I No. 39). Nothing in the text sets an entrance test, a viva, a scoring grid or a credit for past publications.

What the Directorate does publish is the shape of the document it reads. The prescribed proposal format asks for the origin of the research problem, the interdisciplinary relevance, a review of research and development in the subject at international and national status, the significance of the study and its potential contribution to knowledge of social relevance, the objectives, the methodology and a year wise plan of work with targets (post-doctoral category application form 2026-2027). Those headings are the closest thing to a scoring sheet a candidate gets.

The one stated preference is the Goa connection, and the funded work bears it out. Topics closely connected to Goa are accepted, and an authentic topic pertaining to Goa may still be considered on the committee's decision (2015 notification). Past awards went to a study of folklore of the Velip tribal community in Canacona taluka, a sociological study of the Kumbhar community, and a case study of Goa and Macao in decolonisation (beneficiary list).

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The output belongs to the department. A fellow submits the project report in 2 hard copies and a soft copy within 30 days of completing the two year fellowship, and what is submitted becomes exclusively the property of the Department of Art and Culture (2015 notification, Official Gazette Series I No. 39). A scholar planning a commercial book or a thesis from the same material should settle that with the Directorate before signing, not after.

Three reserved powers sit above the fellow. Any clause may be relaxed for reasons recorded case by case, relaxation may also be given at the discretion of the committee, and a dispute over implementation goes to the Minister for Art and Culture, whose decision binds (2015 notification). Reading the scheme, word by word or whole, is finally the Government of Goa's call.

Get help

Contact

Two numbers matter here, and they do different jobs. For the fellowship itself, the named officer is ACO II on 0832-2404623, at aco3-dac.goa@nic.in (Citizen's Charter 2022-2023). For anything the officer cannot settle, the Director sits on 0832-2404600 at dir-dac.goa@nic.in (Citizen's Charter 2022-2023). Both are at Sanskruti Bhavan, Patto, Panaji, which is also the address every category form is written to (junior category application form 2026-2027).

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

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