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14  Research Funding

Keywords

IITB research funding, sponsored projects, IRCC, seed grant, DST SERB funding, industry sponsored research

Research funding could be one of the following three types 1. (Institute) Seed Grant 2. (External) Sponsored Research Project 3. (External) Consultancy Project

14.1 Seed Grant

IIT Bombay, through the Industrial Research and Consultancy Centre (IRCC), offers seed grant to new faculty members to encourage and facilitate their research activities at the Institute. Details of this grant are as follows:

  1. The faculty member should request for a seed grant within 6 months from the date of joining the Institute.
  2. The maximum duration of a seed grant project is 4 years (except for student fellowship), with no further extension. After the project end date, IRCC closes the project with the approval of the Dean (R&D), and any unspent balance is transferred to the IRCC cost centre. Only national travel is allowed from the seed grant.
  3. Seed grant proposals should highlight the objectives, expected outcome, time frame, budget with appropriate justification (especially for equipment) and other relevant details. Specify the equipment proposed to be procured under the seed grant.
  4. The seed grant is up to ₹ 50,00,000 (₹ fifty lakhs), including the support for one PhD student in the project mode. It can be apportioned under EQP (equipment), CON (consumables) and CTE (contingency) budget heads. Reallocation of funds between different budget heads is allowed. The following conditions apply on expenditures from the seed grant:
  1. Procurement of small equipment, consumables and other contingent expenditure is allowed.
  2. Procurement of a laptop or a hand-held device (iPad, Tablets, etc.) is allowed. However, purchase of laptop / hand-held devices should normally be from allocations made by the academic unit. Such a purchase from the seed grant is allowed only with a self-declaration from the faculty to the effect that the purchase is made from only one of the sources (in the first three years).
  3. Travel within India using seed grant is allowed only for the concerned faculty member to defend research proposals and with prior permission of the Dean (R&D).
  4. Seed grant cannot be used for international travel, holding workshops or conferences, hiring administrative assistants or attendants, payment of honoraria, office furniture, air-conditioners, etc.
  5. Project staff may be hired from the seed grant.
  1. Faculty members needing additional funding should seek the same from the concerned Academic Unit, which could review the request and provide support from its own funds such as DDF as per its own policies / guidelines.
  2. Equipment grant may be augmented by up to ₹ 1 crore subject to the following:
    1. This augmentation is to be used exclusively to procure major equipment / facility of a specialized nature, if required for the proposed research work. It is NOT meant as a general grant to be used over time for miscellaneous EQP purchases; these should be procured out of the seed grant.
    2. Faculty member must have secured at least one research proposal from an external agency for funding. If need be, Institute will give a letter of ‘additional financial support’ to be used while seeking funding from external agencies.
    3. Request for additional support will be evaluated by the Research Infrastructure Fund Committee (RIFC). Based on the review by RIFC, a suitable recommendation is made for possible funding to Deputy Director (Finance and External Affairs) and Director for approval.
    4. Faculty member must give an undertaking that the equipment will be made available to other users in the Institute. Potential users of the equipment and the extent to which the equipment will be made available to other users must be included in the proposal seeking additional funding.
    5. Purchase of equipment with this additional amount must be initiated within 3 months of the date of approval of the grant.
    6. Request for the augmented funds may be made anytime within the first two years of the Seed Grant project.
    7. Annual maintenance for 3-5 years must be built into the purchase.
    8. This augmented funds cannot be utilized to setup individual high-performance computing facilities. This augmented support is meant to
      • Supplement any shortfall in the equipment grant from external agencies
      • Enhance capability of the equipment / facility proposed in the project
      • Support additional accessories to the equipment funded by external agencies
  3. Proposals, duly complete in all respects, must be submitted online on DRONA (http://drona.ircc.iitb.ac.in). There is no need to send a hard copy of the proposal.
  4. Completion Report: A project completion report highlighting the utilization of seed grant and the manner in which the seed grant helped the faculty to ‘seed’ his/her research must be submitted to the Dean (R&D) while closing the project. In case the faculty member received augmented EQP grants, the report should also include the following:
  • How the facility supported research of other users and the utilization data
  • Research plans / targets for further utilization of the special equipment / facility in the next few years
  • Plans for further R&D projects to be proposed to fully utilize the potential of the equipment / facility.
  1. Institute will make an annual budget for seed grants. Source of funds can be either MoE grants or IRCC funds. Disbursals of seed grants will be subject to availability of funds under this budget.

14.2 External grants for new faculty

Apply for an external grant in your first year or two. Some schemes, PM ECRG among them, accept you only for a short window after you join. The Office of the Dean (R&D) emails most calls to faculty-notices, usually with an internal deadline a few days before the agency’s. Submit every proposal through IRCC (see below).

  • ANRF Prime Minister Early Career Research Grant (PM ECRG) replaced the SERB Start-up Research Grant. It gives up to ₹ 60 lakh plus overheads for three years, with no extension. You must hold a PhD in science or engineering (or an MD/MS/MDS/MVSc), be 42 or younger (45 for SC/ST/OBC, PwD and women candidates), and apply within two years of joining. ANRF awards up to 700 a year across all subjects. The call opens once a year in October or November and closes in late November or early December.
  • ANRF Advanced Research Grant (ARG) replaced the SERB Core Research Grant. It funds projects of up to five years and up to ₹ 5 crore in science, engineering and their interfaces with the humanities and social sciences. ARG MATRICS covers the mathematical sciences. ARG pre-proposals are due around May to July, and shortlisted applicants send full proposals later in the year. All ANRF calls appear on anrfonline.in.
  • DBT posts its calls for proposals on its announcements page, and you submit through DBT eProMIS. Most calls are thematic. BioCARe funds women scientists setting up their first independent project.
  • DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance funds biomedical, clinical and public health research. Its Early Career Fellowship is for researchers up to four years past the PhD, and the Intermediate Fellowship for those 4 to 15 years past it. Both run for five years and include research funds.
  • ICMR supports health research through investigator-initiated extramural grants, including the ANVESHAN small grants and the NISCHAYAK ANVESHAN intermediate grants. Register and submit on ICMR e-PMS. ICMR opens these calls in late December or January and closes them in March.
  • DST issues thematic and bilateral calls, mostly through onlinedst.gov.in. Its open individual research grants moved to ANRF.
  • CSIR Extramural Research (EMR-II) funds research by faculty in regular positions in science, engineering, agriculture and medicine. Apply on the EMR-II portal when CSIR opens a call.

Check the call document for current eligibility and amounts before you apply; agencies revise them between calls.

Sources: the agency pages linked above; ANRF on X; ICMR, call for ANVESHAN small grants 2026 and deadline extension.