Raman-Charpak Fellowship(R-CF)

Overview

About R-CF

The Raman-Charpak Fellowship pays for a slice of an Indian doctorate to be done at a bench in France. It is not a degree scholarship and not a postdoctoral award. A student who is already registered for a PhD in India moves to a French university or research institute, works there on a piece of their own thesis project, and comes back to finish the degree in India. The stay runs from a minimum of 2 months to a maximum of 5 months under the current call document, shortened from the 2 to 6 months that stood as recently as the 2024 cycle and that unrefreshed scheme listings still quote (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2024).

Running it is the Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced Research, better known by its acronym CEFIPRA. The Centre is an Indian legal entity before it is anything else: it was registered on 16th April 1986 as a Society under the Indian Societies Registration Act 1860, and became functional on 9th September 1987 when its first Director took charge. It is supported by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, and the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Government of France (CEFIPRA, About The Centre). The fellowship itself is jointly funded by DST and the French Institute in India at the French Embassy, and the 2025 call document names both.

The name honours two physicists: Prof C.V. Raman, Indian Nobel Laureate in 1930, and Prof Georges Charpak, French Nobel Laureate in 1992. The programme was launched in February 2013, during the French President's State visit to India (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines).

The size of a cohort is easier to picture than the odds, and CEFIPRA publishes the first. Its awardee list names 28 people for the 2022 cycle: 25 Indian PhD students placed with French hosts, then one French Master student and two French PhD students coming the other way. CEFIPRA does not publish how many applied, so the count sizes the intake and nothing more (CEFIPRA, Raman-Charpak Fellowship awardees). Those Indian awardees sat in labs such as IEMN at the University of Lille and Institut Pprime at CNRS-Universite de Poitiers, paired with supervisors at IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, IACS Kolkata and CSIR institutes.

One line in the call document decides more applications than any eligibility clause. Applicants must have a pre-determined project proposal that has been discussed and agreed upon by the student and both supervisors, Indian and French, before applying. The collaboration is a precondition of the form, not an outcome of winning.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The most recent cycle ran on this schedule.

As things stand, the call is shut. CEFIPRA's Raman Charpak Fellowship page shows Call Closed against the Timeline for Indian and French PhD students, with only the separate track for French Master students still marked open (CEFIPRA, Raman Charpak Fellowship). The Guidelines link on that page still resolves to the 2025 document, and no later one has appeared beside it.

Calls have not sat on a fixed calendar date. The 2022 call opened in February and set 31st March 2022 as the deadline before extending it to 15th May (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2022 guidelines); the 2024 deadline was 8th September (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2024); the 2025 deadline was 10th December. Three cycles, three different quarters, so watching the CEFIPRA programme page beats assuming a repeat of last year's date.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

An Indian applicant has to clear five separate tests, and the one that quietly removes the most people is about timing rather than merit.

The applicant must be an Indian citizen residing in India and registered for a PhD at a recognised university or research institution in India. On top of that registration, the 2025 call restricts the field to students in the second or third year of the doctorate, and CEFIPRA's own programme page repeats the same restriction (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines, CEFIPRA, Raman Charpak Fellowship). A first-year scholar who has just cleared coursework is out, and so is someone in the final stretch of writing up. Several scheme listings still show only the bare registration requirement, so this is worth reading off the call document rather than a directory entry.

Age is capped at a maximum of 30 years as on 1st April of the call year, which for the most recent cycle meant 1st April 2025.

The applicant needs pre-authorisation or prior consent from their own institute or university to apply for a foreign fellowship programme, and the host institution has to be in France. The reverse holds for French applicants, whose host must be in India.

The eight research areas the 2025 call accepts are Atmospheric Sciences with Earth and Environmental Sciences, Materials Sciences, Physical Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Engineering Sciences, Biological Sciences with Life and Medical Sciences, Mathematical and Computational Sciences, and Agricultural Sciences (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Raman Charpak Fellowship 2025). Agricultural Sciences is the newest of the eight: the 2022 call listed the other seven and no agriculture line (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2022 guidelines).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

The scheme record carries no exclusion list, but the call document does, and two of its bars are absolute.

A student who has already been supported by CEFIPRA cannot apply again, and the 2025 wording extends that to anyone supported in the framework of a CEFIPRA project, not only to former fellowship holders. Anyone holding a permanent position in an institution or university is also outside the target group, which keeps the award on students rather than on staff who happen to be enrolled for a doctorate.

Two procedural exclusions bite at submission. An incomplete application is not considered, and applications received by post or submitted after the deadline are not evaluated at all. A candidate who has successfully submitted once must not apply again in the same cycle.

Family members get no support of any kind during the fellowship period. That is stated plainly in the call document and it is a budgeting fact for anyone married or with a child (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines).

Continuation

Renewal conditions

There is no renewal route, and the exclusion rule is what closes it. Once a student has been supported by CEFIPRA, that student is no longer eligible, so the award is taken once and cannot be extended into a second stay (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines).

The duration itself moves in only one direction after selection. A fellow may ask to shorten the stay, subject to conditions set out under Terms and Conditions below, but the call document provides no mechanism to lengthen it beyond the sanctioned maximum.

What you get

Award & benefits

For an Indian fellow the money arrives as a monthly fellowship plus a set of costs CEFIPRA settles separately.

Because the programme runs both ways, the reciprocal term matters to any Indian lab hosting a French student: a French fellow in India receives Rs 40,000 per month plus accommodation charges not exceeding Rs 45,000 per month (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines).

The conference top-up has a condition attached that catches people out. It is reimbursed against actual receipts and proof of acceptance or participation, and it is paid after the fellowship duration is complete, at the time of travel and daily allowance settlement. It covers registration fees, bus or train tickets and accommodation for that event, and the fellow funds it upfront (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines).

Two of these terms changed, and they did not change together. The 1500 Euros per month and the 6-month ceiling both come from the 2022 call (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2022 guidelines), and the 6-month figure was still being announced for the 2024 cycle (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2024). The 2025 call is where both moved: 1710 Euros per month and a 5-month ceiling, repeated in CSIR's announcement of that call and on CEFIPRA's own programme page (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Raman Charpak Fellowship 2025, CEFIPRA, Raman Charpak Fellowship). Anything still showing the older pair, a scheme directory entry included, was written against a call that has since closed. Budget against the call document for the cycle being applied to.

• To and fro air ticket in economy class between India and France.
• Insurance coverage (travel & health) wherever is required & Carte de Sejour (if any).
• Any administrative costs for Visa and Registration (if any).
• Support for attending conferences/seminars/workshops during the stay.
• Value of Fellowship for Indian Fellow: Fellowship Support of 1500 Euros per month for daily expenses, local travel, accommodation charges plus Social Security charges.
• Value of Fellowship for French Fellow: Fellowship support ₹40,000/- per month for daily expenses, local travel, etc. plus accommodation charges not exceeding ₹45,000/- per month.

What to prepare

Documents required

The list of attachments is long, and the useful thing to know is where the 2025 call is stricter or different from what older listings show.

The research proposal runs to a maximum of 5 pages and has to follow the prescribed format, which asks for the title, the work plan, and an explanation of the benefit expected from the stay at the proposed French institute. The CV is capped at 2 pages, with a recent photograph, a summary of achievements and research interests, and at most five publications. The PhD synopsis or short summary of the thesis work is limited to 2 pages (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines). Documents that run past the stated lengths are called out in the call as a compliance point, not a stylistic one.

Two letters do different jobs and are named differently on purpose. The PhD supervisor writes a letter of recommendation. The proposed host supervisor in the French lab writes a letter of agreement, which is a commitment to take the student rather than a character reference. The call adds a practical warning for the French side: host supervisors are asked to seek prior approval for lab access where restrictions apply, the ZRR restricted-zone regime being the example given. That approval takes time and is worth raising with the host lab early.

The No Objection Certificate from the Head of the Institution is required only from Indian applicants. Beyond that, applicants attach a research experience letter or publications as proof of first or co-authorship, with the first pages of all publications combined into a single PDF, a scanned copy of a valid passport showing both front and back, and a recent photograph.

Step by step

How to apply

Only online submission is considered. Candidates register and apply through CEFIPRA's mobility application portal, and the prescribed formats for the proposal, CV, recommendation letter and agreement letters become available to download inside that portal only after registration is complete (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines). So registration comes first and document preparation second, not the other way round.

File naming is compulsory, not cosmetic. The call specifies exactly how each upload must be named: Proposal followed by the applicant's name, CV followed by the name, LoR1 for the PhD supervisor's letter, LoR2 for the host supervisor's letter, NOC for the no objection certificate, Synopsis for the PhD summary, and Passport for the passport scan. Submitting in the prescribed formats is described as absolutely compulsory.

There is no status-tracking page to bookmark. CEFIPRA's mobility portal offers exactly three doors, About, Register and Login, so an applicant sees the state of a submission only from inside the account that made it, and there is no application-number lookup for anyone without those credentials. Beyond the applicant's own login, CEFIPRA posts a general notice on its site listing the calls whose applications are under evaluation or finalisation, and the Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 call with its 10th December 2025 deadline appears on that notice (CEFIPRA general notice). The programme page's own Timeline block is the third place a status change shows up, and it currently reads Call Closed for PhD applicants (CEFIPRA, Raman Charpak Fellowship).

Applying early is explicitly encouraged rather than merely advised, because processing takes time and an incomplete form cannot be repaired after the window shuts.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Selection runs in two stages after the deadline, and the call document names both.

First comes screening and document verification of applications. Applications that clear that pass to a Joint Expert Committee, which evaluates them; the committee is the deciding body and, as the name indicates, it draws on both the Indian and the French side. Results are then declared, and the fellowship starts after the declaration (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines).

CEFIPRA publishes no scoring rubric, no weighting between the proposal and the publication record, and no shortlist or interview stage for this fellowship. What the call does make clear is the sequencing after an award: a fellow is invited to submit a travel itinerary matching the duration proposed in the application form, and that itinerary is valid only after the declaration of results. Booking a flight in anticipation carries the risk alone.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

A few conditions shape the stay itself rather than the application, and they are easier to plan around if read before the form is filled.

The duration written into the application form is close to binding. A request to shorten it may be accepted, but only by a maximum of 30 days, only with a justification and recommendation letters from both the PhD supervisor and the host supervisor, and only at the initial stage of the award before travel begins. The total must still fall between 2 and 5 months (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines).

There is a threshold inside that range worth knowing about in advance. A fellowship longer than 3 months is processed through Campus France under a different procedure, and the call document asks candidates to weigh that when choosing a duration. A four-month stay and a three-month stay are not the same administrative animal.

Conference or workshop support during the stay is conditional on producing proof that a paper or poster was accepted, or proof of participation, and CEFIPRA then considers registration, travel and stay costs for that event.

Get help

Contact

The call document gives the office as Core 5B, Ground Floor, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi 110 003, and the two office lines as +91 11 24682251 and +91 11 24682252 (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines). CEFIPRA's own site adds the detail a visitor needs, entry from Gate No. 2, alongside the general mailbox contact.ifcpar@cefipra.org and office hours of 9.30 am to 6.00 pm, Monday to Friday (CEFIPRA, About The Centre).

For the fellowship itself the 2025 call names Prof. Nitin Seth, Director, and Mr. Kunal Kasariya, Scientific Officer, with kunal@cefipra.org for programme correspondence (Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2025 guidelines). Queries about the submission portal itself go elsewhere again: the portal footer lists pmsadmin@cefipra.org (CEFIPRA mobility portal). Sending a login problem to the programme officer is the slower route.

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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