WISE Fellowship for Ph.D.(WISE-PHD)

For years this scheme had no dates to publish: proposals were accepted round the year, a pattern DST itself names in its closure notice (DST, call-closure announcement). Then the calendar changed:

The same notice commits to the replacement pattern: fresh calls in a time-bound mode, twice a year (DST, call-closure announcement). Since the pause, one milestone has landed - results for the submitted proposals were announced on 24 March 2026 through e-PMS (DST, results announcement) - and the scheme page, last updated 08 June 2026, still reads that the next call shall be announced soon (DST, WISE-PhD scheme page).

DST screens a WISE-PhD applicant on degree, age and employment, and on nothing financial - the criteria it publishes carry no income ceiling (DST, WISE-PhD scheme page). On the degree, the gate is wider than a doctoral fellowship's name suggests: a postgraduate degree in basic or applied sciences, or an equivalent such as M.Phil., M.Tech. or M.Pharm., qualifies, and so does a plain B.Tech.; no NET, GATE or any entrance score appears anywhere in the criteria.

Age runs from 27 to 45, with a relaxation of 3 years in the upper limit for SC, ST and PH candidates and none at the lower end; the date of submission is the cut-off for counting age, so a candidate who turns 27 the week after submitting is out (DST, WISE-PhD scheme page). The employment condition is absolute: the fellowship is only for women not in regular employment. A woman already registered for her Ph.D. remains eligible while two conditions hold - no fellowship from any other source, and less than two years elapsed in the doctorate on the application date.

No WISE-PhD document carries an exclusions section - not the DST page, not the guidelines, and the myScheme record leaves that field blank. What the scheme has instead are four conditions that end an application on their own: a regular job of any kind, an age below 27 on the submission date, more than two years already spent in the Ph.D., and a fellowship currently drawn from any other source (DST, WISE-PhD scheme page). A fifth bar sits in the mentor rules rather than the eligibility lines: a husband or close relative cannot serve as the scientist mentor (WISE-PhD Guidelines, DST).

There is no yearly re-application. The project is sanctioned once and the grant is released in yearly instalments, each earned with paperwork: the utilization certificate and statement of expenditure, due within 3 months of 31 March for every financial year, and an annual progress report certified by the mentor (WISE-PhD Guidelines, DST). DST also convenes Group Monitoring Workshops where fellows present their technical progress, and the guidelines reserve DST's right to terminate a project at any stage if appropriate progress has not been made (WISE-PhD Guidelines, DST).

The scheme page carries the current rates, and they come in four parts:

One trap for careful readers: the guidelines PDF still prints the older Rs 31,000 fellowship rate (WISE-PhD Guidelines, DST), while the scheme page states the revised Rs 37,000 (DST, WISE-PhD scheme page) - for money, trust the page. Nothing else attaches to the award: apart from the fellowship and HRA, no PF, LTA or medical allowance is permissible (WISE-PhD Guidelines, DST).

The fellowship also has near-namesakes inside the same family, and the amounts differ sharply by career stage:

Two items on the list do the real gatekeeping. The consent letter from the scientist mentor matters because the mentor must be the same person as the Ph.D. supervisor, and the certificate from the head of the institution matters because the institute hosting the project must be the institute of Ph.D. registration (myScheme, WISE-PhD record). The proposal itself is filed twice by design: once through the online e-PMS form, and again as the same proposal in the prescribed offline format, uploaded in the form's Submission section. The blank proposal format itself is downloaded from the e-PMS portal's Formats section, not from the DST page (myScheme, WISE-PhD record).

Everything happens at DST's e-PMS portal, onlinedst.gov.in - the applicant registers and files as the principal investigator herself; the institute does not apply on her behalf (myScheme, WISE-PhD record). Settle the research problem with the mentor before touching the form: the Ph.D. and the WISE-PhD project must run on the same scientific problem (WISE-PhD Guidelines, DST), and DST's official answers allow only minor modifications to the topic afterwards (myScheme, WISE-PhD record). No hard copy goes to DST; portal trouble has a named address, pmso.dst@nic.in.

Status checks run through the same e-PMS login that took the proposal. Outcomes are communicated through the portal, and DST's results notice tells applicants plainly to log in to check (DST, results announcement). Once a sanction order issues, the money can be followed too - DST publishes a short how-to on checking fund allocation status (How to check fund allocation status, DST). While the call stays closed, the two pages worth watching for the reopening are dst.gov.in and onlinedst.gov.in (DST, call-closure announcement).

Proposals go to a Subject Expert Committee (SEC) for technical evaluation; a recommendation produces an Approval Letter, and the sanction order that follows carries the head-wise budget for fellowship, research grant and overhead (WISE-PhD Guidelines, DST). Two clocks start at the Approval Letter. The paperwork clock: the host institute's bank account details, the HRA declaration and the mentor's particulars must reach DST within two months, or the approval stands cancelled. The registration clock: a fellow not yet registered must register for the Ph.D. within six months of intimation, failing which the project may be terminated (WISE-PhD Guidelines, DST).

The conditions read like an employment contract because, for the tenure, that is what this is: the fellow is treated as a temporary employee of the host institute, reporting to the mentor on the institute's duty hours (WISE-PhD Guidelines, DST). The clauses that bite: absence beyond 15 days at a stretch, or 30 days in total, needs DST's prior consent, and a continuous 3-month absence without intimation to DST terminates the project. The host institution cannot be changed, and the guidelines permit moving the project to another institution only in rare circumstances on the Subject Expert Committee's recommendation; a mentor change needs the present mentor's NOC, the new mentor's acceptance and DST's approval; an extension runs at most six months, at no cost and with no fellowship paid during it (WISE-PhD Guidelines, DST).

Two obligations travel with the money: at least 30 days of Scientific Social Responsibility outreach - lectures, workshops, popular writing - and an acknowledgement of the WISE-PhD grant in every publication from the project (WISE-PhD Guidelines, DST). The fellowship is scientist-specific and cannot be transferred to anyone else.

The programme officer named on the scheme page is Merugu Naga Subrahmanyeswara Rao, Scientist B, WISE-KIRAN Division, Technology Bhawan, New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi-110016, reachable on 011-26567373 and subrahmanyam.mn@gov.in (DST, WISE-PhD scheme page).

The guidelines route general queries to the division's box, enquiry-wosdst@gov.in, and its phone line, 011-26534166 (WISE-PhD Guidelines, DST). Questions about the online form itself go to pmso.dst@nic.in (myScheme, WISE-PhD record).