Ramanujan Fellowship(RF)

The scheme does not follow an academic-year application calendar; nominations flow all year and decisions come in batches.

The joining clock is the one deadline with no forgiveness written into it: miss the 6-month window and the award is cancelled automatically.

Three conditions do most of the filtering. The nominee must be below 40 years of age, must hold a Ph.D. in science or engineering, a master's in engineering or technology, or an MD in medicine, and must be working abroad at the time of nomination. The current ANRF call words the nationality condition as Indian or Indian-origin scientists and engineers, so it turns on origin rather than on holding an Indian passport; ANRF publishes no separate note on how it reads dual-citizenship or OCI cases, and a nominator should settle that with the programme office before filing.

Merit is the real gate. The committee reads publications and recognitions, not application essays, and the scheme's own description calls the selection scientist-specific and very selective. The published criteria set no income ceiling and no category-based relaxation; the record of research is the whole test, as the eligibility conditions on the ANRF fellowship page make plain. A second rule decides where the fellowship can be held: it is meant for working in new areas and laboratories, other than the one where the candidate obtained the doctorate, and a nomination sent by the candidate's own Ph.D. guide, or by the institute where the Ph.D. was pursued, is not considered at all.

The scheme's exclusions follow from its purpose rather than a published negative list. Anyone already employed in India is out, even on a temporary post: an institute can nominate a scientist only from outside India, having no position or employment in India. Holding any permanent, tenure-track, or contractual position in an Indian institute or university disqualifies a candidate at entry, and accepting such a position mid-tenure forces the fellow to relinquish the fellowship in total, research grant and overheads included. A selected candidate who fails to join the host institute within 6 months of the selection intimation letter loses the award automatically.

There is no renewal to apply for, because the tenure is fixed: five years, not extendable, with support limited to 60 months from the date of commencement. What continues year to year is the money, and that continuation is earned. The grant for each subsequent year is released only after ANRF receives the Statement of Expenditure, the Utilization Certificate, and an annual progress report, reviewed against the science actually done.

The five-year wall has a documented safety net. SERB approved a Research Scientist (SRS) scheme for Ramanujan and INSPIRE Faculty awardees who do not secure a regular position by the end of their tenure: a consolidated Rs 1,20,000 per month with the same Rs 7,00,000 annual research grant, tenable for 2 years and extendable by one more on performance, availed once in a career.

The funding has three fixed components, paid financial-year wise through the host institute.

Because the fellowship amount is consolidated, there is no separate HRA negotiation with the host institute. The research grant is the fellow's own working budget, and it does not cap the lab's ambitions: Ramanujan Fellows remain eligible for regular extramural research grants from the S&T agencies of the Government of India, and can apply for other proposals from any government agency subject to that agency's rules. The scheme also funds one international travel per year. The grant received under the fellowship is taxable under Income Tax rules, a detail worth pricing in before comparing the package against a foreign postdoc salary.

The list of uploads is short for a fellowship of this size, and ANRF marks three of the items as prescribed format rather than free text. The nomination letter goes on the institution's letterhead, duly signed and stamped, and both it and the plagiarism undertaking have templates to download from the fellowship page; the nominator can send the form back to the nominee for revision, so a wrongly drafted undertaking costs a round trip rather than the nomination. The research case travels light by design: the proposed area of research and a brief outline of the proposal go into a single PDF of not more than 5 pages. Around those sit the nominee's CV, proof of age, qualification details, and the publication, award and patent records the scheme asks a track record to be judged on.

The sequence runs institution-first: the host is arranged before the form exists. The scientist approaches the Indian institution of their choice and secures its agreement to host the fellowship before anything is filled in online. Some institutions formalise this step with their own internal screening: the Islamic University of Science and Technology, for instance, ran a call for Ramanujan nominations with IUST as host, taking applications to a 6 February 2026 internal deadline and issuing candidates its committee recommends a host-institution endorsement certificate, with a stated policy of considering fellows for permanent absorption as assistant professors after tenure.

The online part then runs through one portal. The nominee registers on www.anrfonline.in, completes the profile, selects Ramanujan Fellowship under Form Submission, fills the nomination form, and clicks Send to Nominator. The nominator, who must be the head of the organisation or an authorised academic of the host institution, receives an email link, reviews the form, and either submits the nomination to ANRF or returns it for revision.

There is no status page to refresh here, and the reason is worth spelling out. Nothing about this fellowship runs on the National Scholarship Portal, and the money never lands in a personal bank account: on selection, ANRF writes to the individual and the host institute, the institute forwards the acceptance letter with its bank details, and the grant moves to the host institute by RTGS under a sanction order. So the status trail is your anrfonline.in login for the submission stage, both nominee and nominator receive an intimation of successful submission, and after the award it is the host institute's accounts section, not a DBT status page, that knows where the money is.

Selection is made periodically by an empowered Selection Committee appointed for the purpose, and for the 2026 cycle ANRF has said results will be announced twice. No exam, no interview round is promised in the scheme documents at the ANRF end; the committee works from the nomination file, which is why the publication record and the 5-page research outline carry the entire weight. Where a host institution runs its own screening first, as IUST does, a candidate effectively clears two committees, and the university panel may ask for a presentation online or in person before endorsing the nomination.

The conditions all protect the same premise, that the fellowship substitutes for a salary rather than supplements one. During the tenure the awardee is not entitled to any kind of salary, and taking a permanent, tenure-track, or contractual post ends the fellowship entirely rather than trimming it. A fellow may transfer to another host institute, provided no such position is taken, by intimating ANRF and submitting NOCs from both institutions. ANRF expects to be kept informed on IPR, and on any technology, product, or process developed or commercialised during the tenure, and it reserves the right to discontinue the fellowship at any stage or change its terms. Project staff hired against the research grant are paid per the orders ANRF issues from time to time.

The scheme's named contacts sit at ANRF headquarters in New Delhi. The Program Coordinator is Dr. A.V. Balachandar, Scientist F, on +91-11-26511091, email venkat.bala@anrf.gov.in; the Program Officer is Dr. Jacob V. V., Scientific Consultant, on +91-11-26552216, email anrf-fellowships@anrf.gov.in. Postal queries go to Anusandhan National Research Foundation, 3rd & 4th Floor, Block II, Technology Bhavan, New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi 110016.