University Grants Commission (UGC)
UGC:Post Doctoral Fellowship For Indian Scholars in United States
GUIDELINES FOR POST DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP FOR INDIAN SCHOLARS IN UNITED STATES UNDER SINGH-OBAMA 21ST CENTURY KNOWLEDGE INITIATIVE 2012
Purpose
The objective of the Post Doctoral Fellowships under Singh-Obama 21 st Century Knowledge Initiative 2012 for Indian young scholars is to provide them an opportunity to have international collaborative research opportunities, training in advanced techniques and technologies in emerging fields, thereby furthering their research capacity and ability to contribute to higher education with global perspective and forging long-term relationships with distinguished experts in these fields in USA.
These awards will provide an excellent opportunity to young Indian researchers (permanent faculty), under the age of 40 years to interact with the American academic/scientific community and get first hand information of the developments taking place at the international level and acquaint themselves with new academic and scientific research methods and to participate in collaborative research projects. It will enable young Indian researchers to carry out a clearly defined research project and/or acquire newly emerging research techniques and technologies at a place of their choice in USA for a period of up to 12 months. This fellowship would be called a Post Doctoral Fellowship under Singh-Obama 21st Century Knowledge Initiative 2012.
Number of Fellowships : 300 (Three Hundred)
Eligibility
• The applicant should be a permanent teacher in a university/institution recognized by UGC under 2(f) and 12B of UGC Act.
• The applicant should possess at least 60 per cent marks or equivalent in the post-graduate degree.
• The applicant should possess a Ph.D. degree in respective academic discipline (Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Science, Engineering, Technology, Agricultural Sciences) or MD/MS/Ph.D. in Medical Sciences.
• The Applicant must provide proof of having carried out independent research work published in peer reviewed journals preferably indexed.
• The applicant should be of age up to 40 years as on 31 December 2012.
• The reservation will be available in accordance with the national norms.
Area of Work
Proposal should aim to address one of the following challenges:
• Energy, especially renewable energy,
• Environment, especially climate change,
• Health, especially public health,
• Food security,
• Information security.
In the first three categories, proposals pertaining to any aspect of the broad area will be entertained but those pertaining to the specific areas like renewable energy, climate change and public health will be given higher priority.
A successful research proposal could address one of the challenges identified above by aiming for at least one of the following four academic benchmarks:
• contribute to frontier knowledge in an emerging area,
• link different knowledge domains in a genuinely interdisciplinary manner;
• bring comparative perspectives and insights to a problem, issue or puzzle, preferably juxtaposing cases that have not been compared previously; and/or
• mark a significant theoretical, conceptual or practical advance.
Candidates should explicitly identify the challenge that they aim to address and the category (out of the four above) into which their research proposal falls.
Place of work:
The nominee should have been accepted by a US university/scientific/technological/ research institution, which is internationally recognized as an outstanding institution where major work in the area of study identified by the nominee is in progress. There should be willingness on the part of the American institution to accept and extend necessary support to the candidate for the work proposed. No bench fee will be charged by host institution in US. The candidate should himself/herself correspond with the proposed host institution of US for placement. Candidate is required to produce evidence for this minimally, in the form of electronic communication, with the US institution to be visited along with merits/uniqueness of that host institute in the proposed area which satisfies the selection panel about the acceptance of the candidate if he/she is selected.
Note:
The candidates who have availed any other overseas fellowship for a period of more than three months through any Government/public funding agency during last three years will not be considered for this fellowship. The candidate must give a written declaration to the effect that he/she has not availed any such fellowship.
Fellowship:
“The Fellow will be entitled to fellowship amount of US $ 3000 per month.” The minimum period of the fellowship would be 6 months and maximum period of fellowship would be 12 months.
"Fellow will also be entitled to a one time personal contingency grant of upto a maximum of Rs. 50,000 to cover for visa, airport transfer, medical insurance etc. Medical insurance expenses, visa fee, airport transfer charges will be met by the fellow from out of this personal contingency grant."
Fellow will also be permitted to travel within USA to attend conferences or visit other institutes of interest with the approval of the advisor at the host institute. The Fellow will be entitled to avail one of the following grants for this purpose.
i) Grant of $ 600 for fellowship period upto 6 months
ii) Grant of $ 1200 for fellowship period beyond 6 months
Air-tickets for all the selected Fellow would be purchased by the respective university/institution by economy class for shortest route from their place of work in India to the place of the American host institute and back. The actual ticket amount would be reimbursed by UGC to the institution for the same on submission of all relevant documents duly certified by the competent authority of the institution.
Rules governing payment of salary, leave, medical, gratuity, GPF and pension etc. of the organization/ institution/ university to which the fellow belongs would continue to be applicable. No liability on any of these accounts will be borne by UGC.
The candidate selected for the award for this fellowship should commence their research within six month period from the date of award announcement. Failure to do so would render the fellow to forfeit the award.
Application Guidelines
1. Applications in the prescribed format may be submitted only through online mode latest by 11th July, 2012 (non-extendable) by logging into website www.ugc.ac.in/pdfindous/. Applications received after this date will not be entertained.
2. Application should be forwarded by the head of organization/ department where the candidate is employed.
3. Scanned copy of acceptance letter from host institution in USA.
Note : Selection will be a two-step process –
(a) Short-listing of the candidates,
(b) Personal interview of the short-listed candidates.
Note : In case the awardee leave the host institution or fellowship without completing the research project then in such situation the awardee shall be liable for refund of entire fellowship amount within a period of 2 months, failing which it will be treated as misconduct on the part of the awardee and the Commission shall recommend to the parent institution in India for recovery of award amount and initiation of suitable departmental action against the erring awardee.
source here
Last date for online submission: 11th July 2012
Details here:
