Women Involvement in Science and Engineering Research(WISER)

Overview

About WISER

Women Involvement in Science and Engineering Research (WISER) is not a Department of Science and Technology fellowship, even though DST stands behind it. It is administered by the Indo-German Science & Technology Centre (IGSTC), and the application is filed on IGSTC's own applicant portal, not on the DST proposal system that WISE-PhD, WISE-PDF, WIDUSHI and WISE-SCOPE all use. A woman scientist who searches for a DST women's scheme and lands here is one portal away from a wasted month.

The current call asks for something the older scheme listings never mentioned: a pair. A woman Principal Investigator working in India and a woman Principal Investigator working in Germany write one joint proposal, and IGSTC funds both sides of it (IGSTC WISER call page). Neither can apply alone, and Co-PIs are not allowed on either side, so the whole structure is two people and no more (WISER FAQ).

That is a change of model, not a change of wording. In the earlier version a single woman researcher applied to join an ongoing R&D project in the partner country with acceptance from the host team, and applications were accepted throughout the year, as the earlier WISER page still records. The scheme record on myScheme describes that older single-applicant design. Anyone preparing an application from it will assemble the wrong document set and miss the submission window as well.

The German half of the partnership has been renamed since. The Press Information Bureau release that felicitated the first 11 awardees in October 2022 names the Federal Ministry of Education and Research as IGSTC's German founder, and so does the scheme record; the current call page names the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space. It is the same bilateral centre, restructured on the German side.

Who the grant suits is narrow. A woman already holding a stable research post, with a collaboration abroad she wants funded without leaving that post, fits it exactly: the money pays for a project she runs from her existing chair, with a short annual stay in the partner country attached (IGSTC WISER call page).

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

WISER now runs on an annual cycle instead of the rolling intake the older scheme listing describes.

The 2026 window has closed. On the stated annual pattern the next one opens in February, which puts partner-finding, the certificate from the head of institution and the German counterpart's institutional clearance into the preceding autumn and winter rather than into February itself (WISER FAQ).

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The binding test is employment, not academic stage. The call asks for women holding a regular or long-term research position in academia, a research institute or industry, with a minimum of five years of experience and an active employment contract or fellowship valid for more than four years from the application submission deadline. There is no age limit, though early and mid-career researchers are preferred (IGSTC WISER call page, WISER FAQ).

That four-year runway is the condition an otherwise strong application fails on. A researcher on a three-year project appointment, or a fellow whose award ends inside four years, is outside the call however good the science and however willing the German partner, and it sits alongside a separate rule that both members of the pair must work on the project for its entire duration (WISER basic guidelines).

The institution is assessed too. The call asks that the applicant's organisation have an established R&D setup, a demonstrated ability to receive and manage research grant funds, and the capacity to host the paired partner with access to that setup (IGSTC WISER call page). A department that cannot physically receive a visiting researcher is a problem for the application, not only for the visit.

Both members of the pair must be women. In the older single-applicant model the host abroad could be of any gender, and the scheme record's official FAQ still says a host need not be female; the current call is explicit that the collaborating pair consists of women Principal Investigators, one from India and one from Germany (IGSTC WISER call page). Research area is open across all of STEM, with preference stated for applied and industrial projects (WISER FAQ).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

The scheme document publishes no list of excluded applicants, so the exclusions have to be read out of the eligibility conditions and the money rules. On the applicant side, a woman without a regular or long-term position, a woman whose contract runs out inside four years, an applicant with fewer than five years of experience, and anyone proposing to bring a Co-PI onto the project are all outside the current call.

On the spending side the WISER budget guidelines are specific about what the grant will not pay for. Major equipment, including large laboratory instruments, furniture, vehicles and computers, is ineligible. So is infrastructure work, renovation or furnishing. So is any honorarium, consultancy fee or salary top-up to faculty, investigators or permanent staff of either the parent or the host institution, which rules out treating WISER as a way to supplement a salary. Entertainment and hospitality, personal devices and gifts, bank charges and exchange-rate losses, and the cost of changing flights or of a late visa application are all listed as inadmissible. Spending before the project start date or after its end date needs prior written approval from IGSTC or it is disallowed.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

WISER is not renewable. The tenure runs up to three years, in a 24-month or 36-month project, and the WISER FAQ answers the extension question with a flat no.

What does repeat is the annual release of money. The budget guidelines make funds for a subsequent project year conditional on the timely submission of financial documents and on a satisfactory IGSTC review, and they reserve IGSTC's right to seek further documentation, disallow ineligible expenditure and recover funds where the financial rules were not followed. That yearly release is the only renewal-like decision in the programme, and it turns on paperwork rather than on scientific results.

What you get

Award & benefits

The grant is written as two budgets in two currencies, one for each half of the pair, and IGSTC states the ceilings separately for the Indian and the German Principal Investigator.

The project cost head is not a stipend. It pays for consumables, project-based research personnel and minor equipment, and two further heads are carved out of the same approved research cost rather than added on top of it: miscellaneous and contingency, permissible up to 15%, and institutional overheads, permissible up to 10% and calculated excluding travel and per diem. Contingency is where repair and maintenance, registration for conferences tied to the project, publication costs including article processing charges, and patent filing arising from the work are booked; overheads are charged at the implementing institution's own norms (WISER budget guidelines).

Minor equipment is capped at INR 5 lakhs or 4500 Euros across the whole project, with individual items generally held to about INR 2 lakhs or 2000 Euros, so the head cannot be used to buy an instrument (WISER budget guidelines).

The research stay carries its own rate: EUR 2,300 per month of 30 days, calculated strictly pro rata on the actual days spent in the host country, with the Indian awardee paid the rupee equivalent at an exchange rate IGSTC determines. The FAQ folds that per diem into the annual project cost figure, so it is money inside the ceiling rather than beside it, and neither the per diem nor the travel line may be transferred to another head, waived or substituted (WISER budget guidelines, WISER FAQ).

How long the stay may run is set by the length of the project. A 36-month project carries a minimum of two and a maximum of three visits, one per year, totalling 30 to 90 days abroad, with each visit lasting at least 10 days and no more than 45. A 24-month project carries two mandated visits totalling 20 to 60 days, each between 10 and 30 days. The research stay is a necessary component of the proposal, not an optional extra (WISER basic guidelines, WISER budget guidelines).

• The grant will cover basic project assistance (including research staff for the Indian awardee, consumables, and contingency) for the awardee in the parent country and a one-month research stay in the host country (single round-trip airfare, visa fee, medical insurance, per diem for the stay).
• Indian Awardee: Travel (including visa fee and insurance) approximately ₹1,00,000/-.
• Project cost up to ₹12,00,000/- per year (including research staff, consumables, contingency, and per diem @ €2300/month in Germany).
• German Awardee: Travel (including visa fee and insurance) approximately €1500.
• Project cost up to €14500/year (including consumables, contingency, and per diem @ € 2300/month in India).

What to prepare

Documents required

The scheme record lists the personal papers, from the passport photograph and educational certificates through the publication and patent lists. What decides applications is the set of fixed formats IGSTC publishes on its WISER forms page, because each one is a structure to fill rather than free text.

The certificate is the paper to start chasing first, because it commits the institution to more than permission. It has to certify that the organisation will release the applicant for the approved research visits for a stated total number of days, that it will host her paired partner for that partner's visits, that it will extend access to equipment, basic infrastructure and administrative facilities, and that it undertakes to disburse the sanctioned grant to the awardee on time (No Objection Certificate format). That is a signature a head of institution has to think about.

A plain-language version of the title and the abstract is required alongside the technical one. IGSTC uses it for newsletters, social media and other public communication, and asks applicants to drop the jargon and state the problem addressed, the approach and the expected benefit (WISER FAQ).

Step by step

How to apply

Everything happens on the IGSTC applicant portal, and submissions by any other route are refused. Both women register on the portal; whichever of them opens the application first becomes the primary applicant, and she enters her partner's details in the Pairing Details section, which sends the partner a notification. The partner then logs in to her own account and completes her half (WISER basic guidelines).

Only one section is genuinely shared. Paired Project Details is filled collaboratively and is the single common part of the form. Applicant details, curriculum vitae, financial overview, other grants, references, attachments and the declaration are each completed separately by both women, and the final submission is made by the primary applicant, only after the second partner has finished her sections (WISER application portal user guide).

Where the application stands is visible only on the portal home page. The user guide shows the proposal listed there as Draft with an Edit button while either partner still has sections outstanding, and the same line changing to the submitted status with View and Download buttons, the second of which produces the application as a PDF, once the primary applicant has made the final submission. A line still reading Draft when both partners believe they are finished means that last press has not happened. For a fault in the form itself, IGSTC asks for a ticket raised at Get Help or Contact Us inside the portal rather than an email to the programme address (WISER FAQ).

Finding the partner is the applicant's own job. IGSTC states plainly that applicants are solely responsible for identifying and forming their pairs, and offers a one-to-one B2Match networking tool where Indian and German researchers can register and discuss project opportunities (IGSTC WISER call page). The tool introduces people; it does not assign them.

How winners are picked

Selection process

A Joint Committee reads the applications on merit and on whether the eligibility conditions were met, and IGSTC treats compliance with the application framework and the word and page limits as part of that test rather than as a formality (WISER basic guidelines). Most of the limits are enforced by character count inside the portal, so the page ceiling on the uploaded proposal PDF is where a pair is likeliest to trip.

Several of the published criteria score the pairing rather than the science on its own: the credentials of the paired applicants, the complementarity of their expertise, the quality of the collaboration, and the future potential of the collaboration as well as of the research. That is why the short section asking how the two partners' work elements converge carries weight out of proportion to its length. The committee's decision is stated to be final and binding.

IGSTC puts the evaluation at approximately 12 weeks (WISER FAQ).

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The award letter starts a clock: the awardee is to commence her first visit within 12 months of the date on it (WISER application portal user guide). Both members of the pair must work on the project for its whole duration, and a discontinuation by either has to be reported to IGSTC in writing.

Both applicants submit a No Objection Certificate from the head of the parent organisation, and a year-wise travel and activity plan showing when the research stays fall, which joint experiments they carry and what each is expected to produce. An awardee abroad is on the host institution's and the host country's rules, and IGSTC disclaims any responsibility for a violation (WISER basic guidelines).

Acknowledgement is compulsory. IGSTC must be recognised in every publication, report, communication, conference presentation and thesis arising from the grant, in print and online. At the end of the tenure the two awardees submit a joint final project report together with a consolidated Statement of Expenditure and Utilisation Certificate in IGSTC's own format, certified by the authorised finance officer of the implementing institution (WISER budget guidelines).

Get help

Contact

Two desks answer, and sending a question to the wrong one costs days. The programme itself is answered at wiser@igstc.org and on +91-011-26543500; a fault in the application form is not, and goes instead to a support ticket raised inside the applicant portal. The centre's own office is on the ground floor of Block-II at Technology Bhavan, New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi 110016, and post should be addressed to the WISER programme there (WISER FAQ).

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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