Women In Science and Engineering-Societal Challenges with Opportunities Fellowship(WISE-SCOPE FELLOWSHIP)

Overview

About WISE-SCOPE FELLOWSHIP

A WISE-SCOPE proposal lives or dies on one question: can a technique that already works on a bench be made to work in a field, a clinic or a village workshop. The Department of Science and Technology told the Rajya Sabha in March 2025 that it sanctions up to Rs 44 lakh for that piece of work, with Rs 67,000 a month going to the woman scientist who runs it. The programme's own advertisement still prints an older monthly figure, and the portal that receives the proposals has not opened a WISE-SCOPE window since February 2025.

WISE-SCOPE is one programme inside WISE-KIRAN, the Department of Science and Technology division that runs its women-only schemes. DST describes it as support for women scientists aged 27 to 60 who are re-entering the mainstream scientific workforce through translational, lab-to-land research, spread across five applied thematic areas that run from energy and waste to agriculture, health and engineering (WISE-KIRAN, DST).

The acronym is newer than the work behind it. Until the restructuring, lab-to-land research for societal benefit was funded as WOS-B, one of three lines of the older Women Scientist Scheme; a third-party review folded that scheme into four WISE-KIRAN initiatives, and WISE-SCOPE inherited the lab-to-land brief. Dr Bhola Singh put the question to the Lok Sabha on 12 March 2025 and the Minister of State for Science and Technology confirmed the change in writing (Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 2101, Department of Science and Technology). That is why a search for the retired WOS names keeps landing here.

What marks a SCOPE proposal is the destination of the science, not the applicant's discipline. DST's call asks for the development of a viable technology or technique with the possibility of lab-to-land transfer, adaptation and scaling up, aimed at social problems, livelihood generation, drudgery reduction, nutrition, natural resource management, sustainable agriculture, climate change or disaster management (Call for Proposals under WISE-SCOPE Fellowship). A proposal that ends at a publication belongs elsewhere in the family; this one has to name the beneficiary standing at the other end of it.

Demand has been modest, which matters if you are weighing your odds. DST's Brief Statement of Activities for 2023-24 records WISE-SCOPE among five programmes launched that year and reports 66 proposals received under it (Brief Statement of Activities 2023-24, DST).

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

No WISE-SCOPE call is accepting proposals today, and the portal says so twice over. e-PMS still displays a standing notice that the WIDUSHI and WISE-SCOPE window would end on 28 February 2025, while its two live tables of open calls, the dated one and the throughout-the-year one, name neither programme (e-PMS, Department of Science and Technology). DST's WISE-KIRAN page repeats that closing date and promises only that the next call will be announced soon (WISE-KIRAN, DST).

Up to that point the pattern was a long open window rather than an annual season. DST's call page carried the same call from 16 August 2023 to 28 February 2025, and both the advertisement and the scheme record below still describe submission as open throughout the year, wording that predates the closure and should not be read as an invitation (Call for Proposals under WISE-SCOPE Fellowship). One batch was cut off at 31 August 2024 (Result announcement under WISE-SCOPE Fellowship program, DST), and DST posted that list in December 2024 (Result announcement under WISE-SCOPE Fellowship program, DST website). Everything filed up to the February 2025 close was decided on 11 March 2026. Neither a reopening date nor a fixed month has been published, so DST's call-for-proposals page and the e-PMS active-calls table are the only places a new window will surface.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The bar is a doctorate, an age window and an employment status, checked as they stand on the date you submit. DST's advertisement sets the qualification at a Ph.D. in basic or applied sciences, or an equivalent degree such as MD, MS or MDS, and the age band at a minimum of 27 years and a maximum of 60 years as on the date of submission (WISE-SCOPE Fellowship advertisement and guidelines, DST WISE-KIRAN Division). Neither the advertisement nor the guidelines carry a relaxation clause, so the upper limit of 60 is read exactly as it stands.

Employment is the clause that disqualifies most enquiries. Regular employment is a straight bar. Temporary research or academic work is not: the advertisement puts a post-doctoral fellow or a research associate on a project in the temporary column, and a woman in either role can file. What she cannot do is keep it. Selection carries an obligation to leave that earlier assignment, so the fellowship replaces the job rather than sitting beside it.

A career break is not a precondition, and DST publishes no minimum length for one. The eligibility clause runs to three tests only, employment, age and qualification, and a break is not among them. The application format asks separately for the current employment status and, under a heading marked "if any", the dates of a break and the reason for it, so a woman who never stepped away is not excluded by the form.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

myScheme's WISE-SCOPE record leaves its exclusions field blank. What actually stops an application is scattered through DST's advertisement and the project implementation guidelines, in clauses that sit nowhere near each other.

• A candidate in regular employment is outside the programme, and a selected fellow who wants to take any other assignment or job during the tenure needs DST's prior permission.
• Where the same principal investigator has more than one proposal in the system, only the last one submitted goes for evaluation.
• Completeness is the applicant's own responsibility: DST summarily rejects an application that is incomplete or wrongly filled, or one submitted in any format other than the prescribed one, and says no correspondence will follow in such cases.
• A proposal sent by email instead of through the portal is not entertained.
• Marriage or close kinship rules a proposed mentor out.
• The applicant is expected to police her own referee list. She must not suggest referees who fall inside DST's conflict of interest policy, which catches an employer of the past three years, a Ph.D. supervisor or mentor, and anyone she has shared a research publication with in the last three years; the form also lets her name individuals the proposal should not be sent to, with reasons.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

A WISE-SCOPE sanction is issued once. The first sanction order fixes the tenure, up to three years, and cuts the money into heads; after that the fellow never sits down to a second application form. Her equivalent of a renewal is a release request made through the host institution once a year. What gets weighed is the year just finished: the utilization certificate and statement of expenditure filed against it, an annual progress report in DST's technical format setting achieved targets beside promised timelines, and the verdict the reviewing and monitoring committees return on that report (WISE-SCOPE guidelines for project implementation, DST).

Extension is the nearest thing WISE-SCOPE has to a renewal, and DST has made it unappealing on purpose. The guidelines say the project is not encouraged for extension, and where one is granted case by case it runs for a maximum of six months, carries no additional cost, and pays no fellowship for the extended months. A fellow who needs longer therefore finishes the last stretch unpaid.

What you get

Award & benefits

The monthly rate depends on which DST document you are holding. The advertisement that still circulates as the application pack budgets the heads below.

That rate was overtaken before most of the current fellows were selected. On 14 February 2024 the WISE-KIRAN Division issued an office memorandum on emoluments across its programmes. Three of its Ph.D.-level fellowships were revised together, WISE-PDF, WISE-SCOPE and CSRI-PDF, from Rs 55,000 plus HRA a month to Rs 67,000 plus HRA. The order was backdated to 1 January 2023, and grantee institutions were told to pay the arrears (Revision of fellowship under different Programmes of WISE-KIRAN Division). Budget on the memorandum: the advertisement carries the pre-revision figure and DST has not reissued that document.

For the project as a whole, DST gave Parliament a single number on 20 March 2025, up to Rs 44 lakh over three years with the fellowship and HRA inside it (Support mechanisms for women scientists facing career breaks, Ministry of Science and Technology). The first sanction order is where that envelope gets cut up, into equipment, fellowship, research grant, field demonstration charges and overhead, so a heavier equipment ask is money taken out of somewhere else in the same total.

Three limits worth knowing before you build the budget. The fellowship is taxable. No provident fund, leave travel, medical or other allowance is admissible beyond the fellowship and HRA. And funds cannot be moved between the non-recurring equipment head and the recurring heads in either direction, though re-appropriation among the recurring heads themselves is possible with DST's prior approval, so an equipment estimate that turns out wrong cannot be rescued from the research grant.

• Monthly Fellowship: Eligible candidates will receive a fellowship amount of ₹55,000/- per month along with HRA as per norms. - Research Grant: Selected fellows will be provided a research grant of ₹2.00 Lakhs per year for project-related activities. - Field Demonstration Support: Financial assistance of ₹1,00,000/- will be provided for field demonstration during the project tenure. - Equipment Assistance: Support for the purchase of small equipment up to a maximum of ₹2,00,000/- will be provided. - Institutional Overhead Charges: Institutional overhead charges will be given as per DST norms.

What to prepare

Documents required

DST's advertisement lists nine mandatory uploads. What it also carries, and what most applicants discover late, is the format detail that decides whether an upload is accepted at all: the mentor's CV capped at 500 KB, the certificates and letters at 800 KB each, and the project proposal wanted twice over, once as a PDF and once as a Word file, neither above 5 MB (WISE-SCOPE Fellowship advertisement and guidelines, DST WISE-KIRAN Division).

Three of the nine are not paperwork you already hold; they are signatures you have to go and collect. Annexure 3 is signed and stamped by the head of the institution, and it reads as a list of promises rather than a covering note. The institute commits to basic infrastructure, agrees that anything bought on the grant enters its own asset books with disposal left to DST, and takes on the audited accounts and utilization certificates that follow. Annexure 4 is the mentor's consent, which puts her laboratory at your disposal for the tenure and commits her to signing off your technical and financial reports. Annexure 5 is your own undertaking, countersigned by both the mentor and the head of the institute, binding you to full-time work on the project and to DST's written approval before you leave it.

Step by step

How to apply

One portal takes WISE-SCOPE proposals and nothing else does: DST's e-PMS at onlinedst.gov.in. You register as a new principal investigator, filling the department, institute and institute address of the host institution you have already identified, and entering your designation as WISE-SCOPE Fellow. The proposal format is downloaded first, filled offline in Word and PDF within a 5 MB limit each, and kept ready before you start the submission (WISE-SCOPE Fellowship application instructions, DST).

The financial details screen is where a first draft usually comes apart. The fellowship line is entered for each project year, HRA at the rate applicable to your city class, the research grant per year, the field testing and demonstration head, and the non-recurring equipment head with each item named and its quotation uploaded. If the host institution has a PFMS unique agency code, it goes in here; if not, it will be needed later at the release stage. Nothing can be edited after the final submit.

Tracking never leaves that login. e-PMS is built to do both jobs, taking the proposal and then showing where it has reached, which is the only status channel WISE-SCOPE has: there is no public list to search and no reference number to quote at a helpdesk (e-PMS, Department of Science and Technology). DST has used the same channel to deliver outcomes. Announcing the result for proposals submitted till 28 February 2025, it said the decisions had gone to every applicant through e-PMS and told them to log in to read theirs (Announcement of result under WISE-SCOPE program).

How winners are picked

Selection process

Screening comes first and is purely mechanical: eligibility, completeness and the prescribed format. Proposals that survive it are assessed on the applicant's credentials, the societal challenge she has identified, the scientific methodology proposed and the beneficiary expected on the ground from the project's outcome, and the final selection follows the recommendations of DST's Subject Expert Committees. Nothing is communicated until administrative and financial approvals are through. Technical approval yields an approval letter, and the sanction order follows it, written on the committee's recommendation and on the latest quotations for the equipment cleared.

A deadline hides inside that gap. The approval letter is not the sanction; it starts a clock. DST asks next for the host institute's bank account under scheme 1817, an HRA declaration and the mentor's particulars, and the approval stands cancelled if three months pass without them (WISE-SCOPE guidelines for project implementation, DST).

One published result list gives a sense of the shape of a round. DST names the women selected from proposals submitted till 31 August 2024 and groups them by theme area; counting the names in each group gives the spread below (Result announcement under WISE-SCOPE Fellowship program, DST). DST publishes the list, not the arithmetic.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

Nobody else can draw this money. DST attaches the fellowship to the named scientist, and it does not pass to a substitute if she steps aside. Her own status is temporary employment at the host institute, under that institute's administrative rules, with the institute holding her attendance register for DST to inspect and the department disclaiming any liability for her once the project duration ends. The mentor has to be at the same institution, she reports to the mentor on the institute's duty hours, and no progress report reaches DST without the mentor's certification (WISE-SCOPE guidelines for project implementation, DST).

Absence is regulated tightly. Without DST's prior consent the fellow cannot be away from the project for more than 15 days at a stretch or 30 days in total, and the project stands terminated if she is absent for three continuous months without informing the department (WISE-SCOPE guidelines for project implementation, DST). Casual leave, maternity leave and the rest follow the host institution's rules.

Moving is possible once, and only from the middle of the project. DST allows a single transfer of host institution across the whole tenure, shut out of the first six months and out of the final year, and it wants the paperwork done before the move: no-objection certificates from both institutes, an endorsement from the incoming one and a consent letter from the new mentor. It also tells the fellow to wait for the fresh sanction order before starting work at the new place, and it discourages a transfer within the same city or one prompted by the mentor's own change of affiliation. Changing the mentor is a separate permission, expected in situations such as superannuation and impossible without DST's approval.

Two obligations sit outside the science, and a third decides who owns the result. DST's Scientific Social Responsibility guidelines put a floor of 30 days on the time a fellow gives to passing her knowledge and skills out to sections of society, and the examples the document offers run from a student internship to a newspaper piece. Acknowledgement is the second: the guidelines print the wording DST expects on every paper coming out of the project, naming the WISE-SCOPE fellowship and the sanction reference number, and advise the fellow to be first or corresponding author. On the third, intellectual property generated on the grant belongs to the host institution, which files the patent at its own cost and is free to keep what the patent earns; only if it fails to file within six months of deciding to may DST file jointly, and the earnings are then split between the department, the institution and the inventor (WISE-SCOPE guidelines for project implementation, DST).

Get help

Contact

Two addresses do different jobs. For the programme itself, DST's guidelines print enquiry-wosdst@gov.in as the WISE-SCOPE enquiry box, at the WISE-KIRAN Division, Technology Bhavan, New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi 110016 (WISE-SCOPE guidelines for project implementation, DST). The named officer is Dr Chhama Awasthi, Scientist-D, who holds WISE-SCOPE alongside GATI and WOS-B on DST's own team table, at chhama.awasthi@nic.in; Dr Umesh Kumar Sharma, Scientist-G, heads the division and Dr Susheela Negi is associate head, both listed against every programme (WISE-KIRAN, DST). A portal fault is not a programme query and goes elsewhere, to the e-PMS team at pmso.dst@nic.in.

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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