PRL's Vikram Sarabhai Postdoctoral Fellowship (VISHWAS)(PRLVISHWAS)

Overview

About PRLVISHWAS

The Physical Research Laboratory keeps three VISHWAS fellowships in the programme, and it does not fill them from one dated advertisement. Applications sit in a standing quarterly cycle, and the fellowship pays one lakh rupees a month plus HRA and other facilities as per PRL and DOS rules (PRL, VISHWAS fellowship). Two things settle whether you are in or out before anyone reads your science: when your doctorate was awarded, and how old you are on the closing day.

VISHWAS is administered by PRL itself, from Ahmedabad, under the Department of Space. ISRO carries the laboratory on its own site under Autonomous bodies, alongside IIST, NARL and NE-SAC, and describes it in one line as an autonomous unit of DOS (ISRO, Physical Research Laboratory). That position shows up in the fellowship's own wording: the housing and facility terms are written as PRL and DOS rules rather than as a scheme office's rate card, and every page on the laboratory's site closes with the line that the site belongs to PRL, a unit of the Department of Space (PRL, VISHWAS fellowship).

The subject boundary is not a formality either, and the form enforces it by asking you to name the PRL faculty member or members you would collaborate with (PRL, VISHWAS application form). ISRO's description places astro-chemistry and solar physics inside the laboratory's remit, next to planetary science and exploration, geosciences, theoretical physics and the atomic, molecular and optical work (ISRO, Physical Research Laboratory). A proposal that sits outside that spread has no host division to land in, whatever its quality.

Where a fellow would actually sit follows the division that takes them. The Navrangpura main campus holds atomic, molecular and optical physics, geosciences, space and atmospheric sciences and theoretical physics; the Thaltej campus in Ahmedabad holds the infrared, optical and radio astronomy laboratories together with the planetary science and exploration programme; the Udaipur Solar Observatory stands on an island in Fatehsagar Lake; and a 1.2m infrared telescope works from Gurushikhar near Mount Abu (PRL, Campus). The fellowship page names no posting location at all, so the collaborating faculty member you settle on effectively settles the city you would move to.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The calendar is fixed and repeats, so there is no notification to wait for and no year printed against any row. Applications go into the window that is open when you send them, and each window is closed by a single date that covers your form and your letters together.

Read the table from the closing date backwards rather than from the opening one. The date in the middle column is when the referees' letters have to have arrived, not simply when your form has to be in, so the date that actually binds you is whenever four busy people need notice to write. The choice of window can also decide eligibility by itself: the four years are counted back from the deadline you apply against, so an applicant whose degree was awarded near the line is safe in one window and out of time in the next.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Read the eligibility rule as two clocks and one record. The first clock is the award of the doctorate: the degree has to have been awarded, and awarded within four years of the deadline you are applying against. The second is age, counted at 35 years or below on the last date of the application, not on the interview date and not on the day you would join (PRL, VISHWAS fellowship).

The record is a first class held throughout the academic career, which is a longer look-back than most postdoctoral calls ask for. It reaches your bachelor's and master's results, not just the doctorate.

Nationality is the one condition PRL states about the applicant rather than about the degree. The clause opens on Indian nationals holding a PhD, and then fixes only the age of that PhD; it names no country, university or accreditation for the degree itself (PRL, VISHWAS fellowship). So the passport is tested and the awarding institution is not.

A research proposal is listed as an eligibility condition in its own right, not as an attachment to one. PRL wants it built in consultation with a PRL faculty member and wants that person named on the form, which means a candidate who has approached nobody at the laboratory is short of an eligibility item rather than short of a courtesy (PRL, VISHWAS application form).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Nothing here is barred by category. The exclusions are arithmetic, and they run before a reviewer reads a line of your science.

A doctorate awarded outside the four-year window, or an age past the 35-year mark on the closing date, ends the application on its own (PRL, VISHWAS fellowship). Neither is a preference that a strong publication list can offset.

Two situations that candidates assume are bars turn out to be questions instead. The form asks whether you have applied for a post-doctoral or visiting position at PRL before and asks for details if you have, and it asks for your present position, present affiliation and what you have been doing since submitting your thesis (PRL, VISHWAS application form). Neither an earlier unsuccessful attempt nor a current job is written up as a disqualification anywhere PRL publishes; both are disclosures.

Beyond the eligibility clauses, PRL's fellowship page publishes no list of excluded categories for VISHWAS, so those clauses are the whole of what it shuts out.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Two years is a ceiling, not a term you are granted at the start. PRL runs the fellowship to a maximum of two years with renewal after a successful annual review every year, and allows an extension of one more year where the case is justified and approved (PRL, VISHWAS fellowship).

That single sentence is the whole of what the laboratory publishes about the process. What the annual review consists of, who sits on it and what standard a third-year request has to meet are not set out anywhere on the page, so the reviewing faculty member is the person to ask well before the first year closes.

What you get

Award & benefits

One line covers the whole of the cash side, and PRL prints it in words rather than in figures: One Lakh Rupees per month, with HRA and other facilities as per PRL and DOS rules attached to the same line (PRL, VISHWAS fellowship). No slab, seniority step or experience grade is published against it, so there is nothing on the page that a stronger record or a second year moves you up.

What the table cannot show is where the housing line stops. PRL attaches no rate, percentage or slab to the HRA, because the allowance follows the laboratory's and the department's internal rules rather than a figure printed for this fellowship, and the page names nothing beyond the monthly amount and that allowance (PRL, VISHWAS fellowship). No contingency grant, research allowance or travel head is published for VISHWAS, so a fellow's project costs are a matter to settle with the host division rather than an entitlement to plan around.

• Number of VISHWAS Fellowships: 3- Scholarship Amount: Scholars receive ₹1,00,000/- per month with HRA and other facilities as per PRL/DOS rules.- Duration: Maximum of 2 years (subject to successful annual reviews). It may be extended for 1 additional year based on justification and approval.

What to prepare

Documents required

The uploads are where most of the work sits, and the form is specific about their shape. The research proposal runs to four pages at most and is asked for under seven headings: motivation, introduction and background, objectives, methodology, experience relevant to the proposal, expected outcome, and a timeline that details the first year. It goes up as a PDF of 1 MB or less, as do the publication list and the CV, while the photograph is capped at 500 kB (PRL, VISHWAS application form).

Two conditions govern the publication list. Titles and authorship have to read exactly as they do in print, and work still in preparation is left off, with journal papers and conference proceedings kept in separate blocks (PRL, VISHWAS application form). The form also asks for the date your thesis was submitted and the university it went to, separately from the date the degree was awarded, so both dates need to be to hand before you open it.

The confidential references are not uploads and are not three files you collect. PRL asks you to supply names, addresses, emails and phone numbers for your PhD supervisor and three referees, and then asks all four of them to write in directly (PRL, VISHWAS application form). One item that has nothing to do with your science sits at the end of the form: the names and addresses of two responsible people in your locality, or two references to whom you are known, which is a separate list from the academic four.

Step by step

How to apply

Applying is a single online form hosted on PRL's own site. There is no state portal in front of it, no account to create, and no fee field anywhere on it (PRL, VISHWAS application form). You upload the photograph, publication list, proposal and CV, name the collaborating PRL faculty, and close with a declaration that the entries are correct and that, if selected, you will abide by the rules and discipline of the Institute.

The half that candidates lose time on is the letters, and the address for them is worth copying carefully. The fellowship page routes them to the Chairperson, PDF Committee; the application form routes them to the Chairperson, VISHWAS Fellowship Committee. Both give the same mailbox, pdf@prl.res.in, so the two names are one office (PRL, VISHWAS fellowship). PRL states that a candidate may be called for an interview only after all the necessary inputs have been received, which puts the referees, not you, on the critical path.

There is no dashboard to refresh once the form is in. PRL issues no application number and publishes no login for VISHWAS, and it warns on the form itself that editing is impossible after submission, which removes the usual reason for going back in (PRL, VISHWAS application form). What the form does give you is a single channel marked for all correspondence, pdf@prl.res.in, with a telephone line at (91) - 079 - 2631 4869. Since the interview call is gated on the references arriving, the one status question that changes anything is whether all four letters have reached that mailbox, and your referees can answer it faster than the committee can.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Shortlisting is a paper exercise on three inputs: academic credentials, the research proposal, and recommendations from three reviewers. Applicants who clear it are called for an interview, held either online or in person (PRL, VISHWAS fellowship).

Nothing in that route is a competitive examination. PRL's advertisement page carries its technical and administrative vacancies as numbered, dated notices followed by written tests and skill tests; VISHWAS is not one of those notices and never appears there (PRL, Advertisement). There is no roll number, no result sheet and no cut-off to compare yourself against.

One thing to know before you plan for the interview: the selection paragraph on PRL's own page still names a June/July 2024 interview window, while the application timeline printed directly beneath it repeats every quarter with no year attached (PRL, VISHWAS fellowship). The 2024 date is a leftover the page has not cleared, not a live schedule; the quarterly timeline below it is the part that tells you which month your interview falls in. PRL publishes no travel or accommodation reimbursement for attending, and the online option is on the page precisely because applicants come from across the country and from abroad.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The fellowship is a fixed-term research position rather than an appointment. Tenure is capped and tied to annual review, and the housing and facility side follows PRL and DOS rules, which means the terms a fellow lives under are the laboratory's internal rules rather than anything printed on the fellowship page (PRL, VISHWAS fellowship).

The application itself carries the only undertaking PRL publishes: a declaration that the entries are correct and that, if selected, the applicant will abide by the rules and discipline of the Institute. Once that declaration is signed and the form goes in, no field can be changed (PRL, VISHWAS application form).

PRL publishes no bond, no minimum service obligation and no publication target for VISHWAS fellows, so anything of that kind would come from the host division's own arrangement rather than from the fellowship's published terms.

Get help

Contact

All correspondence for this fellowship goes to one mailbox, pdf@prl.res.in, which the application form marks for all correspondence and lists beside a telephone line at (91) - 079 - 2631 4869 (PRL, VISHWAS application form). The office behind it is written as the Chairperson, PDF Committee on the fellowship page and as the Chairperson, VISHWAS Fellowship Committee on the form; referees write to that same address directly.

The laboratory's postal address is Physical Research Laboratory, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad 380 009, with a general line at +91-79-26314 000 (PRL, Contact). The Udaipur Solar Observatory and the Mount Abu observatories publish their own numbers, which start to matter once you know which division would host you.

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.

Explore more

Related scholarships

References

Sources