SERB Research Scientist Scheme(SERBRSS)

Overview

About SERBRSS

A researcher becomes eligible for the SERB Research Scientist Scheme by running out of a different fellowship. The gate is two named awards and nothing else: the INSPIRE Faculty Fellowship of the Department of Science and Technology, and the Ramanujan Fellowship. No student, no doctoral candidate and no postdoctoral researcher on any other line can apply, whatever the publication record. The complication for anyone reading about it today is that the scheme's own official pages no longer agree with each other, and one of them states that the programme is under revision.

The scheme exists to catch a specific fall. An INSPIRE Faculty awardee or a Ramanujan Fellow finishes a five-year tenure, the fellowship carries no extension, and if no regular position has been secured by then the support simply stops. The SERB Board approved the SERB Research Scientist Scheme so that those researchers could keep working, and keep looking for a permanent post, for an additional period of two years, as the scheme page on the SERB and ANRF site sets out under Awards and Fellowships.

The eligible pool is therefore small and countable. Answering the Rajya Sabha on 29 January 2026, the Ministry of Science and Technology reported that 482 young scientists had been supported through the INSPIRE Faculty Fellowship over the previous five years, and 168 through the Ramanujan Fellowship. Only people from those two streams, at the right point in their tenure, are inside this scheme's door.

Where the scheme now sits administratively is a fair question, and the answer has to be assembled rather than quoted. ANRF absorbed the schemes SERB used to run, and most of them carried over intact. This one did not travel with the rest. ANRF's proposal portal keeps a dedicated menu for Erstwhile SERB Schemes that lists TARE, VAJRA, SIRE and the POWER lines, and the SERB Research Scientist Scheme is absent from it. Nor does it surface in ANRF's own compendium of programs, the booklet that opens by tracing the foundation to the Anusandhan National Research Foundation Act, 2023 (Act No. 25 of 2023) and then walks through each grant line and each Recognitions and Fellowships programme the foundation runs. Search that document end to end and the words Research Scientist do not occur in it once.

The scheme page itself is still published, in two places. The copy on the SERB PRISM project site closes with a single line stating that the programme is under revision. The January 2026 parliamentary reply names the SERB Research Scientist Scheme in the past tense, among programmes ANRF had alongside the Start-up Research Grant and TARE, and it publishes beneficiary counts for four other programmes without giving one for this scheme. The scheme's own entry on the Awards and Fellowships page still carries a Call for Proposals button, and the proposal notices page it opens lists ANRF recruitment advertisements rather than any call under this scheme. No official notice says the scheme has been closed, and none announces a currently open round. A researcher who qualifies should write to the officers named on those pages before preparing an application.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The window is not a date on a calendar, it is a position in the applicant's own timeline. Applications are received through the year, and the application must be submitted within six months before or six months after the regular tenure of the INSPIRE Faculty or Ramanujan Fellowship ends, per the guidelines. The same clause adds that previous batches may be allowed to apply at the opening of the new scheme, a relaxation written for the launch rather than for someone reading the page years later.

Against that, no dated call for the scheme appears on the SERB and ANRF pages that still carry it, and the scheme record itself is blank in both the opening and closing date fields. With the revision notice sitting on the PRISM copy, a qualifying researcher is better off confirming by email than posting a set of applications on the strength of the published text.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The two-fellowship gate and the age bar do the work here. The upper age limit is 40 years at the time of submission, the award can be held only once in a career, and the scheme takes effect only after the INSPIRE Faculty or Ramanujan tenure has actually ended.

What the scheme record does not spell out is what an applicant is judged on. The prescribed application format asks for the list of publications produced during the INSPIRE Faculty or Ramanujan tenure, the significant results from it in no more than one page, and the status of the review already done by the respective monitoring committees, as set out in Annexure I of the scheme guidelines. There is no published minimum number of papers, no citation threshold and no impact-factor rule. The earlier fellowship's own monitoring record is the substitute for one.

The application is filed under a single broad area, chosen from Chemical Sciences, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Engineering Sciences, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences and Physical Sciences, and that choice has to be written on the envelope as well as on the form.

Host institution rules bind the applicant before the application is sent. The work must sit in India, in a recognised academic institution, national laboratory or recognised R and D institution that will provide administrative and infrastructural support, and the researcher may either stay with the current host or move to a different one that suits the proposed work.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Nowhere does the SRS paperwork print a heading called exclusions, and yet four of its rules do the work one would. The first bars anyone from returning to the department or institution that awarded their PhD, MS or MD, so the obvious soft landing back at the doctoral lab is closed. The second bars holding any other research project or fellowship from any government or non-government source while the scheme runs, which rules out stacking the emolument on top of a second grant.

The third is quieter and costs applicants the most planning: there is no manpower provision at all. The research scientist is expected to carry out the research objectives personally for the entire duration, so no JRF, SRF or project assistant can be paid from this grant. The fourth limits what the research money buys. It runs to minor equipment, consumables, contingencies and travel, and the version of the page on the PRISM site confines that travel to within India.

Absence from the host institute is fenced too, and the clause sits among the benefits rather than under any leave heading. A research scientist who means to be away from the implementing institute continuously for more than eight weeks, field work on the project excepted, has to obtain the funder's consent before going, per the scheme page.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

The two official copies of the rules disagree on this point, and the disagreement matters more than any other difference between them. The scheme page as published today makes the assignment tenable for two years and extendable to one more year, subject to performance evaluation, with the support never running beyond three years in any circumstances. The guidelines PDF hosted on the Department of Science and Technology site takes the opposite line: two years, and not extendable beyond two years under any circumstances.

The site copy is the later of the two, since it also carries the higher emoluments, and the PDF reads as the version the scheme opened with. Either way the third year is not automatic. It turns on a performance evaluation, and since the award can be availed only once, there is no second SERB Research Scientist term to fall back on afterwards.

What you get

Award & benefits

The money is where the two documents part company most visibly, so both versions are worth seeing side by side before an applicant budgets anything.

Read the word consolidated carefully. The emolument is all inclusive, so there is no house rent allowance, no dearness allowance and no institutional top-up sitting on top of it, and the overhead goes to the host institution rather than to the scientist.

One provision decides what happens when the scheme actually works. If the research scientist finds a permanent position anywhere in the country during the tenure, the emolument stops from the day of joining, but the research grant portion continues for the remaining period so the research already envisaged can be finished. Taking a job does not mean abandoning the project.

• The “SERB Research Scientists” will be entitled to receive the grants as given below: Sl. No.Budget HeadAmount1Emolument Consolidated amount of ₹1,20,000/- per month2Research Grant₹7,00,000/- per annum3Overheads₹1,00,000/- per annum All Inclusive
• Note 01: Research grants can be used for minor equipment, consumables, contingencies, and travel. There is no provision for providing manpower support under this scheme. The Research Scientist is expected to undertake the research objectives by himself/herself during the entire duration of the SRS Scheme.
• Note 02: The SERB Research Scientists are not eligible to receive any other research project/fellowship from any Government or Non-Governmental source during the tenure of the Scheme.
• Note 03: The SERB Research Scientists must seek the consent of SERB if he/she intends to be away from the implementing institute (except for field work related to the project) continuously for a period of more than eight weeks.
• Leave: SERB Research Scientists are entitled to leave as per the rules of the host institution.
• Participation in scientific workshops held in India or abroad will be treated as on duty.
• Maternity leave as per the Govt. of India instructions issued from time to time would be available to female candidates in all categories.

What to prepare

Documents required

Every document has to arrive in a prescribed format, and three of them are annexures reproduced inside the guidelines rather than free-form letters. Annexure I is the application itself, Annexure II the applicant's own undertaking, and Annexure III an endorsement signed by the Registrar of the university or the head of the institution. One discrepancy is worth catching before the envelope is sealed: the myScheme record opens its document list with a passport size photograph, which neither the guidelines PDF nor the scheme page asks for by name, so the photograph should go in with the annexures rather than instead of one.

Annexure III is the one to start early, because it commits the institution rather than the applicant. The host has to accept administrative control of the scientist, take every asset bought under the sanction into its own books with disposal left to the funder, and settle the financial accounts within three months of the scheme ending. A registrar's office generally needs notice for that.

The award letter of the INSPIRE Faculty or Ramanujan Fellowship is not a formality either. The application form asks for the fellowship reference number and the exact dates of joining and completion, which is what fixes the applicant inside the six-month submission window.

Step by step

How to apply

This is a postal application, which sets it apart from every ANRF fellowship now filed through the online proposal system. The candidate prints three copies of the application on both sides of A4 paper and posts them to the officer named on the scheme page, with a soft copy of the complete proposal sent by email to the same officer, and the envelope superscribed with the words SERB Research Scientist followed by the broad area in brackets, as the scheme page instructs. That paper route explains the field readers check first: the myScheme entry records the mode of application as offline and leaves its application-link box empty, because the scheme has nothing online for it to point at.

What Happens After the Envelope Is Posted

Since the set travels by post and email rather than through the electronic proposal system ANRF uses for the schemes it still runs, an SRS application never acquires a proposal number, and a candidate has no reference to quote at a helpdesk. The practical acknowledgement is the soft copy email, so send it from an address that is monitored and keep the delivery proof for the posted set.

The host institution is the second channel and the more reliable one. The guidelines route both the annual progress report and any termination through the host institute rather than direct from the scientist, so the institution's research and development office is where correspondence on the file ends up. An SRS file is therefore followed by correspondence rather than by lookup, and any third-party page offering to show SRS status is not reading it from the funder.

How winners are picked

Selection process

A Selection Committee constituted for the purpose evaluates the applications. It is allowed to take into account the performance evaluation already carried out by the relevant subject expert committee during the INSPIRE Faculty or Ramanujan tenure, and applicants may be called for a personal interview if the committee wants one, per the guidelines. The transition into the scheme is described as being made on the basis of that performance evaluation, which is why the monitoring record of the earlier fellowship carries so much weight in the form.

No marking scheme, category quota or annual number of awards is published for this scheme, so an applicant cannot work out a cut-off or a hit rate from official material.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The assignment is temporary and contractual, and the undertaking the applicant signs says so in the sharpest possible terms: the signatory states in advance that they will have no claim whatsoever to regular or permanent absorption when the support expires. The same undertaking commits the scientist to full-time research, to an annual progress report communicated through the institute, and to two copies of a consolidated report at the end, as Annexure II of the guidelines sets out.

Termination runs both ways. The funder reserves the right to end the award at any stage if it is satisfied that adequate progress is not being made or that the grant has not been used properly, and a scientist who wants to leave must inform it through the host institute, after which the institute must stop incurring expenditure from that date.

Two further clauses catch people out. Spare time on equipment bought under the project has to be made available to other users. And on everything the scheme's own rules leave unsaid, the SERB Research Scientists are governed by the prevailing guidelines of the National Post Doctoral Fellowship, so that document is the fallback rulebook. Where the project uses genetically engineered organisms, field trials or human or animal material, the relevant biosafety or ethics clearance has to be submitted.

On leave the scheme writes almost nothing of its own. A research scientist draws leave under whatever rules the host institution applies to its own people, time spent at a scientific workshop is booked as duty rather than charged to that leave, and the Government of India's standing instructions on maternity leave reach women candidates in every category.

Get help

Contact

The published copies do not send an applicant to the same desk, and not one of them carries a date, so it is worth writing to both addresses before posting a set of applications.

The Awards and Fellowships page directs applications to Dr Harish Kumar, Scientist F, Science and Engineering Research Board, 3rd and 4th floor, Block II, Technology Bhawan, New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi 110016, with the soft copy to harishkumar@nic.in.

The guidelines PDF and the PRISM copy give a different address: Member Secretary SRS, Science and Engineering Research Board, 5 and 5A, Lower Ground Floor, Vasant Square Mall, Sector B, Pocket 5, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi 110070, with the soft copy to prasanna@serb.gov.in.

Only one of the copies names the person holding that post: the PRISM page gives it as Dr S.V. Prasanna, Member Secretary SRS.

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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