ICMR-Junior Research Fellowship(ICMR-JRF)

Overview

About ICMR-JRF

The entrance test that gave this fellowship its name is not held any more. ICMR's own fellowships page carries a single line above the JRF entry saying the programme has been revised as the Biomedical Research Eligibility Test, or BRET, from 2024 onwards (ICMR, Fellowships). The award itself survived the rename, and so did its hardest condition: the money follows you only after you have found a supervisor and a host institute of your own.

The ICMR Junior Research Fellowship pays a science post-graduate to do a doctorate inside health research. It is aimed at applicants from a non-medical background, and the Ph.D. topic has to sit within the DHR-ICMR research mandate rather than anywhere the candidate pleases (DHR, Human Resource Development Scheme guidelines).

What arrives after the result is an award letter, not a seat. The fellowship activates only once you enrol for a Ph.D., and the clocks attached to that are short. The DHR guidelines want the joining documents on the ePMS DHR portal within six months of the award letter (DHR guidelines), and the BRET-2025 result gives its selected candidates one year from the declaration to activate the award (DHR, BRET-2025 result). The 2020 ICMR rulebook that older pages still quote allowed two years from the award letter to secure Ph.D. registration (ICMR JRF rules); go by the notice for the cycle you are in, not by that one.

The shape most search results still describe belongs to the older cycle: 150 fellowships, of which 120 were for biomedical work with an emphasis on life sciences and the rest for social sciences, with the test held at 12 centres (ICMR, Junior Research Fellowship until 2023 batch). Under DHR the award runs on one combined merit list instead, and where you may enrol depends on where you land in it.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The published pattern and the recent calendar disagree, so plan around the notice rather than the habit. The BRET FAQ still says the examination notice appears in English newspapers around March or April with the test tentatively in the first or second week of July (BRET FAQs), yet the last two cycles were held in September and in January. No BRET-2026 advertisement had appeared on the DHR notices list when this page was last checked in early September 2026, where the newest BRET item is still the November 2025 extension for BRET-2025 (DHR, schemes and advertisements).

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The current bar is an M.Sc or equivalent post-graduate degree in one of the disciplines the BRET FAQ lists, a run that goes from Microbiology, Biochemistry and Genetics through Forensic Sciences, Neurosciences and Nursing to Biostatistics, Public Health and Social Work, with at least 55% marks for General, EWS and OBC candidates and 50% for SC, ST and PwBD candidates (BRET FAQs). For 2025-26 the same document let candidates who had qualified the DHR-JRF examination in earlier years appear as well. The upper age limit was raised to 35 years with effect from 1 April 2025, against 30 years for the BRET 2024 cycle (DHR guidelines). The 28-year ceiling that older notices state applied to the ICMR-JRF examination as it ran until the 2023 batch (ICMR JRF FAQs).

One exclusion is worth checking against the current document rather than the older one. The ICMR-JRF FAQ shut out B. Tech and M. Tech candidates in biomedical sciences along with pharmacy post-graduates (ICMR JRF FAQs). The BRET eligibility line reads differently: it accepts an M.Sc or equivalent post-graduate degree including M. Tech and M. Pharma, and Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences appear among the domains a candidate may choose (BRET FAQs).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Holding this fellowship and holding anything else is the line ICMR draws. You may not draw a stipend, a salary or any other financial assistance except leave salary while holding the fellowship, and a certificate to that effect goes in with the application (ICMR JRF rules). Two further routes end an award rather than block it: particulars in the application form that turn out to be incorrect or false allow termination forthwith, and a fellow who cannot produce the Ph.D. registration certificate within two years of joining is terminated at that point.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

There is no renewal form to file. Continuation runs on reports: the first annual report is due after 10 months from the date the fellowship commences, routed through the supervisor with an appraisal, and every later report is due two months before that fellowship year closes (ICMR JRF rules).

Moving from JRF to SRF is the step people assume is automatic, and it is not. The upgradation report falls due after 22 months of work and needs the host institution's Research Doctoral Committee behind it (DHR guidelines). Where progress is not satisfactory and the upgradation report has still not arrived, the rules allow a fellow one further year at the junior rate after the second, with the fellowship terminated at the end of the third (ICMR JRF rules). Five years is the outer limit, and a no-cost extension beyond it comes only from the DHR Division Head and never past six years (DHR guidelines).

What you get

Award & benefits

The rates were revised when the scheme moved to DHR, so a page quoting the older figures is describing an earlier batch.

Recipients of that top reward may also apply once for DHR international travel grant support, subject to funds (DHR guidelines).

The contingency is fenced in tightly and is not a research budget in the loose sense. Books and documents may take no more than 25% of the annual grant, thesis typing up to 10%, equipment and non-expendable articles cannot be bought from it at all, and none of it may go towards foreign travel (ICMR JRF rules). House rent allowance stops the moment the institute gives you hostel accommodation, and medical benefits follow the host institution's rules with no financial burden on ICMR. Dearness allowance, city compensatory allowance, bonus and leave travel concession are all listed as inadmissible (DHR guidelines).

• Fellowship Stipend: ₹31,000/- per month for 1st and 2nd year (JRF); ₹35,000/- per month for 3rd to 5th year (SRF, if upgraded). - Contingency Grant: ₹20,000/- per year for research-related expenses. - Fellowship Duration: JRF for 2 to 3 years; SRF for a maximum 3 years; total duration up to 5 years. - Ph.D. Opportunity: Eligible candidates can enroll in Ph.D. programmes in recognized universities/institutions. - Hostel Facility: Hostel accommodation may be provided by the institute, subject to availability. - Medical Benefits: Provided as per the rules of the respective institution (ICMR does not bear expenses). - Leave Benefits: Casual leave and maternity leave as per Government rules. - Additional Opportunity: 100 additional candidates considered for JRF positions under ICMR-funded projects (subject to conditions).
• Note: The Fellow will not be treated as an employee of the ICMR.
• The applicant should not draw any stipend or salary or be in receipt of any other type of financial assistance except leave salary during the fellowship.

What to prepare

Documents required

Beyond identity, age and qualification proof, the joining file is assembled by the institute and uploaded rather than posted. It carries a joining report stamped by the supervisor and the head of the institute, the Ph.D. enrolment or registration letter forwarded through the supervisor, a mandate form because funds are released to the head of the institute only, a hostel certificate where the institute houses you, and an undertaking from the fellow. All of it goes online through the ePMS DHR portal, and the guidelines state plainly that no hard copy of any document will be accepted (DHR guidelines).

One document sits outside that list and catches people late. A research synopsis has to be submitted through the supervisor and the host institute within six months of the award letter, and it is evaluated by an Expert Committee constituted by the Secretary, DHR (DHR guidelines). At the result stage the requirement is narrower and faster: self-attested soft copies of the post-graduate degree, score sheet and category certificates, as PDF files under 1MB, emailed within one month of the result, with hard copies not entertained (BRET-2024 result notice).

Step by step

How to apply

You do not apply to ICMR first. Registration happens with whichever agency runs the test that year, and that agency has changed: BRET-2024 was conducted by the National Testing Agency (BRET-2024 result notice), while BRET-2025 was conducted by AIIMS New Delhi, whose examination section ran online registration from 01.11.2025 to 08.12.2025 up to 5:00 pm (AIIMS Admission Notice 330/2025). The footprint widened with the rename: the BRET FAQ lists twenty centres named by state, from Meghalaya and Jharkhand to Goa and Kerala (BRET FAQs), where the retired paper ran in twelve cities (ICMR, Junior Research Fellowship until 2023 batch).

Tracking the application is a two-stage business, and the first stage has a hard window. AIIMS published a separate slot, 11.12.2025 to 13.12.2025, for candidates to check the status of registration and correct rejected images or wrong registration details, and told applicants to watch aiimsexams.ac.in for admit card and exam date updates (AIIMS Admission Notice 330/2025). After the test, the list of successful candidates goes up on the DHR and ICMR websites (BRET FAQs), and award letters are issued only after the submitted documents are verified, by email and by post to the permanent address in the application form (BRET-2024 result notice).

What follows the award letter has moved onto a portal. A selected fellow sends a willingness letter to DHR-ICMR within one month of the result being declared, registers on the ePMS DHR portal and submits the joining documents there within six months of the award letter (DHR guidelines). The paperwork still travels through other people: the application goes through the supervisor and the head of the institute where you propose to work, that head has to certify that the institution's equipment, laboratory and other facilities will be made available to you for the Ph.D. tenure, and any project involving human participants or animals needs institutional ethics committee clearance before the work starts. The older ICMR rulebook still in circulation sends the same application to the Director General on paper, marked for the Head of HRD (ICMR JRF rules); the current guidelines take nothing in hard copy.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Selection is by a combined merit list, with the qualifying mark set at 50% for General-UR, OBC, PwBD and EWS candidates and 45% for SC and ST candidates (DHR guidelines). The test is a computer based paper of 150 multiple choice questions in 180 minutes, built as three sections of roughly 50 questions each, and the third section is drawn from one subject domain you pick at the time of application (BRET FAQs). That FAQ sets out the paper in detail and says nothing at all about negative marking, where the retired ICMR-JRF paper deducted 0.25 for each wrong answer (ICMR JRF FAQs), so treat the deduction as unsettled until the year's own notice says otherwise.

Then comes the rule that decides where you spend the next five years. The first 60% of the eligible candidates may enrol for the Ph.D. at any UGC-recognised university or Institute of National Importance, while the remaining 40% must enrol at one of the 27 ICMR institutes and centres and register under the AcSIR-ICMR Faculty of Medical Research (DHR guidelines). Candidates from the waiting list are pulled up when a selected fellow does not join.

How many awards that adds up to is not settled between the documents, and it is worth knowing which one you are reading. The DHR guidelines put the first 60% at 300 fellows and the remaining 40% at 200, both marked as current numbers that may be increased according to need (DHR guidelines), while the BRET FAQ says a tentative total of 250 candidates shall be selected, subject to budgetary provisions (BRET FAQs). Neither is a promise for a future cycle; the result notice for the year is what fixes the count.

Recent cycles show what that looks like in practice. BRET-2024, held on 14th September 2024, selected 344 candidates against 375 seats (BRET-2024 result notice). BRET-2025, held on 10 January 2026, produced a List-I of 300 selected candidates (DHR, BRET-2025 result).

Fine print

Terms & conditions

A fellow is not an employee of ICMR and works under the administrative control of the host institution, subject to that institution's rules (ICMR JRF rules). Money reaches the head of the institution in two half-yearly instalments under the DHR guidelines, where the older ICMR rulebook said four quarterly ones; either way a statement of expenditure for the previous instalment falls due every three months and the next release is held against it, and the last three months of stipend, contingency and HRA are withheld until the certificate of thesis submission arrives (DHR guidelines).

Two conditions change how a fellow behaves. Leaving before completing one year can mean refunding the stipend drawn from the date of joining to the date of leaving, and a transfer between institutions is not entertained after one year as a JRF except on compelling grounds justified in advance, which the Joint Secretary of DHR reviews and approves (DHR guidelines). Leave is thin by design: eight casual leaves under the ICMR rules, maternity leave as per government rules, no sick leave at all, and any leave taken counts inside the tenure (ICMR JRF rules). The BRET FAQ still sends fellows to those ICMR fellowship rules for the terms it does not restate (BRET FAQs).

Get help

Contact

Applications under the fellowship rules are addressed to the Director General of ICMR, marked for the Head of HRD, and travel through the supervisor and the head of the institute (ICMR JRF rules). The Council's headquarters is V. Ramalingaswami Bhawan, P.O. Box No. 4911, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110029 (ICMR), while the HRD Division that now issues the award letters sits with the Department of Health Research at the IRCS Building, New Delhi 110001 (DHR, BRET-2025 result). Anything to do with the test itself, meaning registration, corrections, admit cards and exam dates, belongs to the agency conducting that year's paper, which for BRET-2025 was the AIIMS examination section (AIIMS Admission Notice 330/2025). Post-result emails are expected to carry the batch and roll number in the subject line and to be addressed to the Head of the HRD Division (BRET-2024 result notice).

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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References

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