ICMR- Post Doctoral Fellowship(ICMR-PDF)

Overview

About ICMR-PDF

The Indian Council of Medical Research says it means to award fifty of these fellowships a year, and the most recent selection it has published named four people. That intent, and the 27 institutes and centres the award is meant to be held in, sit on ICMR's Post Doctoral Research page, which also links the result notification for the 26th batch recommending those four, every one of them conditionally. Anyone weighing this award against a laboratory job should read the guideline for what it actually binds, not for the headline count.

The award is run by ICMR's Division of Human Resource Development and is written for a researcher who has just finished a doctorate and wants to keep going on the same question. Its own guideline is blunt about that: the proposed post-doctoral work has to continue the Ph.D. research, and an application that proposes something else will not be considered, per ICMR. The research areas named are basic science, communicable and non-communicable disease, and reproductive health including nutrition.

Names are a live source of confusion here. ICMR's own page heads the section "Post Doctoral Research", the call paragraph inside it invites applications for the "ICMR Centenary-Post Doctoral Fellowship", and the myScheme listing files it as ICMR-PDF. All three refer to the same award. ICMR's fellowships index carries only three programmes under that heading, and the post-doctoral one is the only entry aimed at people who already hold a doctorate.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

As of September 2026 the Council has no window open. The Call for Applications block on the live Post Doctoral Research page still shows a window that ran from 1 February 2023 to 28 February 2023, closing at 5:30 pm, for hard copies delivered to ICMR Headquarters. The stale block is not the only thing left standing on that page: the roster of ongoing fellows it offers for download is a scanned file whose own name pins it to September 2019.

A later call exists but not on that page. ICMR's retired site carried a call notification for the December 2023 batch with a window of 1.1.2024 to 31.1.2024, closing at 5:30 pm, addressed to the Director General for the attention of the head of the HRD division. That site no longer resolves, so the archived capture is the record of it.

Earlier still, the scheme ran on a fixed twice-yearly calendar. The 2022 version of the guideline printed the last date of application as 30 June and 31 December every year, and pinned the age calculation to those same two dates. That standing pattern is gone from the current text, which is why a candidate cannot plan around a month any more. Note also that a listing on an aggregator, myScheme included, stays up between rounds, so seeing the scheme described in the present tense is not evidence that applications are being accepted.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Only Indian nationals may apply. The freshness rule is the one that decides most cases: the doctorate must have been awarded within three years counted to the last date of the application, and a provisional degree is accepted, but a result notification, a certificate, or a viva-voce or thesis-submitted intimation is explicitly refused in its place, per ICMR's eligibility clauses. The age ceiling is 32 years on the same date, relaxable by up to five years for SC, ST, OBC, PH and women candidates, with a further relaxation of up to three years available on the sponsoring Director's request and the screening committee's recommendation.

Read the degree wording closely, because ICMR's page is not internally consistent about it. The scheme description and the call paragraph both say Ph.D., MD or MS, while the numbered eligibility clause underneath them, clause 1.2, names only the Ph.D., per ICMR. The clause is where the wording moved. ICMR's 2022 guideline opened the same clause to fresh Ph.D., MD and MS holders; by the December 2023 call it had been cut back to the doctorate alone, and the surrounding prose was left as it stood. The myScheme entry still reproduces the older, wider eligibility text, so an MD or MS holder reading it there is reading a version ICMR's operative clause has moved past, and the position is worth settling with the HRD division before a month goes into a proposal.

The remaining conditions attach to other people and places. The proposed guide must hold at least Scientist-C grade, a bar the current clause list states without qualification. And the 2022 guideline let postgraduate medical students hold the fellowship in an MCI-recognised postgraduate medical college where at least three batches had already taken their postgraduate degrees. That permission had gone by the December 2023 call and it is absent from the current clause list. The myScheme record still carries it as live eligibility; ICMR's own clauses are what an office applies, and they no longer contain that route.

No minimum number of papers is set anywhere in the guideline. What the checklist asks for is a list of publications, the reprints themselves, and acceptance letters or pre-prints for anything still in press, and the committee then weighs that record. Nothing in the published text addresses whether a candidate already in regular employment may apply; the conditions ICMR does state are the three-year window, the age ceiling and the host institution's endorsement.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Rather than name categories of people it will not fund, ICMR writes its bars as filters on the packet, and the guideline gives four ways an application dies before anyone reads the science: it arrives late or incomplete, it proposes work that does not continue the doctoral research, it comes without the host institute Director's or Director-in-Charge's recommendation, or it leans on a viva-voce or thesis-submitted notice in place of the degree. All four are stated on the ICMR page. The plagiarism report is a fifth trap of the same kind, because it has to be verified by ICMR's own Research Integrity Officer rather than by the applicant's university.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

An ICMR-PDF is sanctioned once and then reviewed, never re-advertised. The tenure clause on the retired site's December 2023 batch notification sets two years, extendable by a maximum of one more year on the strength of work performance and the recommendations of the guide and the host institution's Director or Officer-in-Charge, with the third year separately subject to an expert committee's recommendation and the approval of ICMR's competent authority. The guide, the host institution's head, that committee and the Council itself therefore all have to sign before a third year exists. The 2022 wording of the same clause asked for outstanding performance and the Director's recommendation and stopped there, so the extension route was tightened rather than merely rephrased.

The same clause carries the exit penalty. A fellow who leaves before completing one year has to refund the fellowship drawn from the date of joining to the date of leaving.

What you get

Award & benefits

The rate is a consolidated one and its vintage is stated on the page: Rs 65,000 per month with effect from 31 July 2020, under Order No. 1/2/2020-Admin-II of the same date. ICMR has published no revision to it since. House Rent Allowance follows Government of India rules on top, Non-Practicing Allowance is paid where admissible, and the contingency grant is Rs 3.0 lakhs a year.

Medical benefits and leave are not written out for post-doctoral fellows at all. The clause headed accommodation and other benefits on ICMR's page borrows them wholesale, entitling a fellow to medical benefits and leaves under the Council's rules for its Junior Research Fellows and Research Associates, and the guideline reproduces none of those rules. The entitlement a fellow actually has therefore lives in a document the fellowship page does not link, which makes it worth getting from the host institute's administration in writing at joining.

• Monthly Fellowship: ₹65,000/- per month along with HRA and NPA as per Government rules. - Contingency Grant: ₹3,00,000/- per year for research-related expenses. - Travel Support: Up to 25% of the contingency grant for national travel related to research work. - Tenure Duration: 2 years, extendable by 1 more year based on performance. - Refund Clause: Fellowship amount must be refunded if leaving before 1 year. - Fund Disbursement: Fellowship and contingency grants are released every six months. - Accommodation Facility: Accommodation may be provided (HRA not applicable if provided). - Medical & Leave Benefits: As per ICMR rules for fellows.

What to prepare

Documents required

The checklist runs to twelve numbered items, but the requirements that sink applications are not all inside it. The plagiarism report, item 12, has to carry verification by ICMR's own Research Integrity Officer rather than by the applicant's university. An affidavit from a notary or magistrate is required where the name or surname differs across certificates, which ICMR flags in its notes against item 1 of the form. A grade-to-percentage conversion sheet is required wherever marks were awarded as grades, flagged against item 9. And the general instructions, not the checklist, are where the demand that every copy be self-attested is buried. The numbered list itself runs from the school leaving certificate that proves date of birth to testimonials from two referees, one of whom must be the Ph.D. guide.

One requirement sits outside that list and is easy to miss, because ICMR names it under How to Apply instead: the application has to be accompanied by a presentation of the proposal running to at most five slides.

Step by step

How to apply

This is a paper process. The guideline asks for hard and soft copies of a downloaded, signed application form, complete in every column, with NA or Nil written wherever a field does not apply, and it says incomplete applications will not be considered further. The hard copy goes to the Director General at ICMR Headquarters, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110029, with "Application for ICMR centenary post-doctoral fellowship" written on the envelope; the soft copy goes to the HRD division's email address given on the ICMR page. Applications must be routed through the host institution, and the host Director's recommendation has to be inside the packet.

A candidate who later wants to know where the packet has got to is left with a room number and two telephone extensions. ICMR's call notice names Sh. Kishor Toppo, Technical Officer-C, at Room 423 on the third floor of headquarters, and prints extensions 369 and 349 for queries; behind those there is no login, no reference number and no submission portal. Outcomes are not messaged to candidates either. They appear as a result notification file posted to the Post Doctoral Research page itself, which is where the 26th batch result sits today.

How winners are picked

Selection process

ICMR screens on the record and then on a conversation, with no examination at any stage. Shortlisted candidates face a personal discussion or interview before a selection committee constituted by the Director General, and the committee judges research experience, publications, citations and impact factor, per ICMR. The interview is held at ICMR Headquarters in New Delhi. Its 26th batch result records the decision as taken on the basis of the presentation of the research proposal and the personal discussion, which is what the five-slide deck the packet demands is actually for. Indian nationals applying from abroad may be considered in absentia if the committee finds them suitable, which is the one route that does not require a flight.

What the last published result shows is that clearing that discussion is not the end of it. Every name in the 26th batch notification linked from ICMR's page is recommended subject to revising the research proposal, one of them subject to a major revision, and the notification says award letters would issue only after the revised proposal and its justification came back through proper channel. That batch was also one of two selections a year under the calendar then printed on the scheme page, so the four names are what one round produced, not what a year did, which is the fair way to hold them against a stated intent of fifty.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

Money reaches the fellow through the host institute, not directly, and it moves in six-monthly releases that include the contingency grant. Where the host provides accommodation, HRA stops. Travel is capped at a quarter of the contingency grant and only for national travel connected to the sanctioned work. The guide and the host institute's director are made responsible for reviewing the research proposal thoroughly before it is sent to ICMR, which puts a real burden on the host rather than on the applicant alone. On any disputed point the guideline gives the last word to ICMR's competent authority. All of these sit on the ICMR page.

Get help

Contact

Applications and queries go to the Division of Human Resource Development, Indian Council of Medical Research Headquarters, V. Ramalingaswami Bhawan, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110029. The post-doctoral call names Sh. Kishor Toppo, Technical Officer-C, at Room 423 on the third floor, with extensions 369 and 349 for queries, and gives the HRD email address for soft copies. ICMR's general enquiry line and the Council's own contact address are published in the footer of the same site.

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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