FAQs

Research in India is conducted at government institutes like state and Central universities, IISERs, IITs, TIFR, IISc, IMSC, ISRO, DRDO, CSIR etc. and R&D sector of industries. Different research programs are offered by all of these institutes. Long term research can be undertaken during a PhD program. Students can work on small research projects/Internships through visiting student programs at various research institutes.

Studying anything matures our brain and helps us think out of the box. It is important to develop a research attitude irrespective of the field chosen. Certain knowledge and Innovation from one field can be used elsewhere outside the field. Complex problems faced by humanity can be solved using knowledge of more than one field hence studying about and researching in interdisciplinary sciences is important.

Knowledge of basic branches of physics like Mathematical Methods, Quantum Mechanics, Classical Mechanics, Statistical Mechanics, and Electrodynamics is essential to pursue a career in Theoretical Physics.

Many Research Institutes offer opportunities such as Summer Research Programs and Internship Programs, for which graduate and post graduate students can apply. These short duration projects where you can work with a mentor, are good way of getting research exposure

To choose a mentor, one needs to know the area of Interest. Once that is decided, the next step is to visit websites of research Institutes, where information about Researchers, their area of specialization along with contact details are provided. If any interesting research topic is found, students can contact the respective researcher (via email) and request for projects. Mentor should be willing to take you under his guidance. He also should find a good potential candidate for research in you. 

Many educational Institutes provide online courses, but it is important to enroll into government recognized courses.

Students up to First year of B.Sc. can join Coursera courses available at link https://in.coursera.org/

Final year of B. Sc and M. Sc. students can pursue Swayam NPTEL courses, which is a project by the Ministry of Education, Government of India. Its courses are available at https://swayam.gov.in/nc_details/NPTEL.

Writing is an essential skill for academic careers. To be able to write, one must read extensively. Research Papers, Review Articles, Thesis etc. can be good starting points.  Many online tools are available that can be helped with format of document and grammar.

Programs are written by researchers and shared with the research community. Older programs are written in Fortran Language; therefore knowledge of the language can help understand those programs. Nowadays, Languages like C++ and Python are used. Hence knowledge of these is essential to get versed with recent programs.

Critical thinking, Academic writing, Collaboration, Data collection and analysis, are some of the necessary skills to pursue a research career. Also, knowledge of tools like programming languages, computational tools is advantageous.

Candidates can pursue a PhD part-time through UGC if all necessary conditions like qualifying criteria are fulfilled. The candidate's employer must provide the institute with a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the appropriate authority. To enroll students for PhD programmes, individual academies could also offer entrance exams; in this case, the candidate is exempt from having to take the National Eligibility Test (NET) or other equivalent exams

Writing a research paper is one most important writing skill to present your research idea, methodology and  results, that should be understandable by other researchers. First you need to identify a problem whatever you find interesting. Then a lot of literature surveys are required. Once you know what work has already been done in this area, what are the gaps that need to be studied, or, what are the facts/results that are  desired, you can proceed and start working on those problems. If you have some results of either an experiment or theory, then you can gather information in that area and start writing Introduction, Methodology, theory, Results and discussion, conclusion. Support your results with other research works done earlier. Show your results in Tables, graphical manner, figures. Give references everywhere (Cite research work from previous works) where you have used some information/data comparison/theory/method from other research papers.  Search for people who have worked in the same/similar area. You will find their email ids, affiliations  in their research papers. Write to them about your work, request them to either collaborate, be a co-author or review your papers. Some of them may agree. It is helpful if you know some professors in that area of research.

Each Government agency like DST, CSIR, DBT, DAE, BRNS etc. have all the information on their website. Select the scheme from the website for which you are eligible. There are different schemes for students and faculty. Each scheme has a certain format. You just have to follow the instructions to write your project proposal. Usually the project proposal should have a research problem supported by literature survey, references, objectives of the project, work plan, methodology, national/international status, expected outcomes, budget  etc.  You will need to fill up all those details and submit. Most of the submissions are online.  

First define a good research problem.  It should have some relevance either scientifically or socially. You should clearly mention why this study is important and how it will be useful.  Prepare the proposal as mentioned in the above question.

For students, First they should identify a research supervisor/mentor who could be their professor in college/university or outside their university. The supervisor  should agree to guide you. The supervisor will guide you or help you to identify a problem and work towards solving and writing the research proposal.

The scientists in various institutes in India are entitled for A-class facilities. Their salary structure and other emoluments are similar to the A-class officers, with salaries ranging between ₹(56,000-1,77,500) for scientific officer - C and extending up to ₹(1,44200- 2,18,000) for scientific officer - H, for the entire career span . Scientist C is the starting level after M.Sc. After B.Sc also, some positions of scientific Assistant or Scientist B are offered.

The fellowship that one can get during Ph.D and Post Doctoral Research are as follows:

• Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship(PMRF) of MHRD, Government of India
• CSIR-UGC JRF Fellowship of Government of India,
• DBT-JRF fellowship of Government of India,
• FITM-AYUSH Research Fellowship Scheme of Forum on Indian Traditional Medicine(FITM) and Ministry of Ayush
• SAARC Agricultural PhD Scholarship of SAARC Agricultural Centre
• Swami Vivekananda Single Child Scholarship for Research in Social Science of UGC,
• Vision India Foundation Fellowship(VIF) of Vision India Foundation(VIF)
• Burning Question Fellowship Awards of Tiny Beam Foundation
• Google PhD Scholarship of Google
• Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund Scholarship of Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund
• ICHR Junior Research Fellowships(JRF) of Indian Council of Historical Research(ICHR)
• ESSO-NCESS Junior Research Fellowship of ESSO-National Centre for Earth Sciences Study

Some popular fellowships for which aspirants can apply during or after B. Sc. or M.Sc. course are

• INSPIRE Programme
• Kishor Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (KVPY)
• Women Scientist Scheme (WOS-A)
• Mathematics Training and talent search Programme (MTTS)
• Post graduate merit scholarship for university rank holders
• Indira Gandhi Scholarship for Single Girl Child
• K. S. Krishnan Research Associateship (KSKRA)
• AcSIR APJ Abdul Kalam Summer training Programme
• IAS Bangalore summer research fellowships
• IGCAR JRF
• Narotam Sekhsaria Scholarship Programme
• HDFC Educational Crisis Scholarship Support

The funding agencies that give various research fellowships and grants are:

• Department of Science and Technology (DST)
  • https://dst.gov.in/
• Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)
  • https://www.csir.res.in/
• University Grants Commission (UGC)
  • https://www.ugc.gov.in/
• Department of Atomic Energy (DAE)
  • https://dae.gov.in/
• Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences (BRNS)
  • https://brns.res.in/)
• Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)
  • https://www.drdo.gov.in/
• Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)
  • https://www.icmr.gov.in/
• Indian council of agricultural Research (ICAR)
  • https://icar.org.in/

Students can check various fellowships and grants offered by these institutes on the web address of these institutes.

All Research outcomes are relevant to society. Some can be directly used for the public good (e.g. covid vaccine where the research outcome solved a big pandemic problem), whereas some are used indirectly by other scientists/engineers/doctors/professionals, of other fields to solve real world problems (e.g. Exotic nuclei research outcomes are used by many scientists working for energy, reactors, nuclear medicine and many other applications). It’s a continuous chain and network which works. All the researchers /engineers /scientists earn reasonably well. Look at the salaries/fellowships in another answer.

As regards communicating the existing knowledge, you can write articles in blogs, magazines, local newspapers, research bulletins, etc. in English and/or local languages so that common people also know something about ongoing research. WeMR can also introduce you to a few such writers who have made science communication as their full-time profession.  That may help you to plan your future.

To increase the potential for research jobs, You can do the following :

(a) Learn your basic courses in B.Sc very well. Grasp the concepts, develop expertise in problem solving.

(b) try to identify the areas you like the most and develop some expertise in that areas;

(c) One should try to find some opportunity to work with some scientist to get some work experience and learn the nuances of research.

(d) Get expertise in various Research skills including computer programming, Linux, Numerical Methods, Latex, Graphics, Ms Office, Excel, PowerPoint etc.

For Vedic Science you can try options like VEDICMATHSCAREER.COM, various platforms on social media with VEDIC SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY etc. From there,  you all find further connections.

“Science of Today is the technology of tomorrow. No Nation can grow without Science and Research”.  The study of Science and learning scientific skills help in growing  the skills of observing qualities, measuring quantities, experimenting, sorting, classifying, predicting, inferring, and communicating, which help in drawing conclusions based on your experiences, experiments, theory, analysis, reading, discussing etc. and making decisions about it. Hence,   inculcating these qualities is useful in whatever you do – from teacher, lecturer, professor, scientist, IAS officer, police, Army person, banker, entrepreneur or a leader. Whatever you do, you give your best! That would be your service to your nation.

Get expertise in scientific skills, learn as much as you can, learn wherever you can and give back to society by doing your best.  Scientific skill and research experience during your B.Sc./M.Sc will always help you in all types of professions.

You can appear in the GRE to take admission from abroad. There are many Universities/ Laboratories which take their individual exams/interviews which you can find from time to time in various advertisements. You can also avail a good scholarship for PhD abroad. Building your profile which may include projects, research skills etc will help further.

Research jobs in India are primarily in Research Institutes/Universities starting as Assistant professor/Scientist B,C,D. Many government  bodies, private companies also hire  science graduates/scholars. You need to check for the advertisements. Posting  your resume on LinkedIn also helps. R&D divisions of many companies in India and abroad also hire science students after B.Sc./M.Sc./PhD into different levels. Science entrepreneurship is a new emerging career opportunity. Look for various fellowships, grants for startups - in

• DST (Department of Science and technology (https://dst.gov.in/)),
• CSIR (https://www.csir.res.in/)
• DAE (https://dae.gov.in/node/77)
• Neeti aayog, Govt. of India,
• DRDO (https://www.drdo.gov.in/careers)
• DOS (Department of Space) (ISRO and its affiliated bodies)

 A List of funding agencies is given in a Table above.

Listen to various scientists; read about their research, read science blogs, science magazines. Interact and work with scientists of various fields. Then see which field you like the most and then choose a mentor for that research area. Choose the elective courses accordingly and apply to various research institutes/universities/IITs/IISERs   internship/PhD program.

The list of research facilities by GOI is listed above. There are private facilities growing very fast. Many start-ups, R & D divisions of many companies hire science students.

There are many scholarships from Govt. of India and also from private firms. Check the lists above in other answers. You may also check social media updates of (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) pages of DST and other GOI bodies regularly.

Many private companies like GE India, Thorlab, Philips India, Samsung, Thermax India, INTEL, IBM, Reliance, ONGC, NTPC, also hire science graduates, post graduates and PhDs. LinkedIn helps you to reach out to such companies.

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/

There are already many ways and many career opportunities in science research in India and it is increasing day by day at a fast pace. The only problem is lack of awareness among students. This is the prime motivation behind the foundation of WeMR.

Since the awareness about those opportunities is much less, researchers like us are creating awareness via initiatives like WeMR. Nowadays the research career of science, science Start-ups is also growing. Science communication is another emerging career.

We wish and hope that with WeMR, you will surely be aware of the various opportunities in the field of research.

An undergraduate student should focus seriously on their courses being taught in their colleges as they are the foundation stones. Other than that, they can try to get associated with some research group and work with them to learn and contribute as well. You can also innovate; do projects with help of your college professors. 

The eligibility criteria for a college professor is Minimum a M.Sc degree, but Ph.D is preferred.  Assistant professor is the starting point for recruitment in Academic career.

1. A Good academic record at the Master’s Degree level in a relevant subject from an Indian University, or an equivalent degree from an accredited foreign university.
2. Also, the candidate must have cleared the National Eligibility Test (NET) conducted by the UGC, CSIR or similar test accredited by the UGC like SLET/SET. Those who have completed Ph.D may be exempted from NET/SLET/SET exams.

This is the basic eligibility criteria which may be sufficient in college lecturer-ship although the eligibility criteria of different institutes may vary. You should check on their websites. 

Path 1 :  to become faculty in reputed universities and eminent institutes is :

Most of the Universities (where you will teach at M.Sc level and be a Ph.D guide also), IIT’s IISER, NISER, CBS  and all eminent research institutes like TIFR, BARC, VECC, SINP, HRI  require Ph.D Degree and minimum 1-2 years of postdoctoral experience abroad. 

Ph.D and post doctoral research fellowships are very good just like a good salary.

Postdoctoral research abroad provides a good amount of money. Here selection becomes easy if you have done good research work with good publications during your Ph.D.

Path 2: Apply to these institutes for the post of Scientific officer (Scientist C) after M.Sc by direct recruitment.  After getting a regular position there, you can do Ph.D and post doctoral research abroad which your institute will allow.