How to apply for ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) Post-doctoral Fellowship

Do you have a PhD degree? Are you looking for research opportunities? ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) is looking for post-doctoral fellows and offering ICAR-PDF for 2020. Interested and eligible candidates can apply for the post-doctoral fellowship. Applicants can check the details of Fellowship, eligibility, application procedure and last date etc in this article.

About the organization

ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) or the Pusa Institute was established in 1929. It is an autonomous institute and governed by the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India. It is India's largest agricultural research and education institutes of India. It is the pioneer institute in green revolution and quality research in agricultural and horticultural crops and their productivity. The institute is also engaged in the development of integrated crop management technologies for the sustainable agricultural production system. Institute also offers various courses for post-graduates and research students.

About Post-doctoral Fellowships

Agricultural Education Division (ICAR) has approved a new programme the ICAR Post-doctoral Fellowship (ICAR-PDF) under the ongoing scheme 'Strengthening and Development of Higher Agricultural Education in India'. This programme has been started to select and promote the best researchers to pursue Post-doctoral programme in Agriculture and Allied Sciences.

Objectives

The main objectives of this fellowship include:

Selection of best young talented researchers for research in the leading areas of agriculture and allied sciences to build the national capacity.
To provide researchers with a base and develop them an independent researcher.
Make them competent in initiating a new programme in nationally important priority areas under the supervision of a mentor.

Eligibility criteria

Only Indian nationals can apply for this post-doctoral fellowship.
The applicant must hold PhD degree with the course work) from a recognized University and must be in service in an ICAR-AU institution and also completed at least 3 years of service as a Scientist or equivalent (Teaching/Research/Extension) in a regular capacity.
A candidate can avail ICAR post-doctoral fellowship only once in his/her career.

Important note: The candidate will have to choose a different institute and different mentor at the time of application submission for the post-doctoral fellowship as they will not be allowed to carry out their research within the same ICAR-DU and the PhD Supervisor or Co-supervisor.

Eligibility of mentor

Mentor must hold a PhD degree.
He/she should be appointed as a faculty member in regular capacity in concerned ICAR-DU academic or research institute.
He/she should have at least 10 years of experience either in academics or research.
He/she must have at least 2 years guiding experience of 2 PhD scholars.
It should be noted that a Mentor cannot have more than two ICAR-PDF fellows at any given time.

Age limit

The maximum age limit is 40 years for the ICAR-PDF calculated on the last date of application submission. There will be an age relaxation of five years for SC/ST/OBC/Physically Challenged and Women candidates.

Duration of fellowship

ICAR post-doctoral fellowship will be granted for a one-year duration and a purely temporary assignment.
Number of Fellowships: Number of fellowships are as follows:
ICAR-IARI Pusa, New Delhi-10 per year
ICAR-IVRI Izatnagar, ICAR-NDRI Karnal & ICAR-CIFE, Mumbai-5 per year.

Finance assistance and facilities

Fellowship: Fellows will be paid a consolidated fellowship of Rs. 75,000/- monthly by concerned ICAR-DUs. It is to be noted that the fellowship amount received by the fellow awardee would be taxable according to the Govt. of India rules. This amount will be over and above the salary amount received by the awardees.

Research grant: A Research Grant of Rs. 2,00,000/- annually will also be provided to the fellow through the concerned ICAR-DUs. The research grant is provided to purchase necessary minor equipment, consumables, stationery items, postage, repairing and travel within the country. Further, contractual manpower (RA/SRF/YP) support will not be provided under this scheme.

All the necessary support and facilities like administrative, infrastructural facilities and lab facility must be provided by the host institution to the awardees. Awardees can get accommodation at the host institution or otherwise, can make their arrangements.

Note: Fellow will not be able to receive any other fellowship from any other source during the fellowship period.

The fellowship and the research grant will be released in two installments. The candidate must enter a bond for completion of a year of PDF at the time of joining ICAR-DU.

How to Apply

Every year, ICAR invites application for the ICAR-PDF through its concerned ICAR-DU. Now applications are open and interested candidates can apply for the fellowship.

First, read all the guidelines and instructions carefully by visiting the official website of ICAR and fill the application form.

Following details/documents must be submitted along with application form:
A research plan: A research plan is to be prepared and submitted by the candidate that must include the objectives, outline of proposed research work and its usefulness to the parent Institute. The work plan must be endorsed by the respective Director of ICAR Institute/Vice-Chancellor of Agricultural University under the ICAR-AU system.

Letter of Approval: A letter of approval of the research plan from the mentor should be appended with the application. Approval letter should mention the declaration regarding the availability of adequate infrastructural facilities and equipment to execute the work plan.

Consent Letters: A maximum of two consent letters can be provided by each mentor.
Thrust research areas, mentors and labs will be identified by the host institute in which the PDF will work.

Mode of selection

Screening of the applications will be done by the selection committee by academic records, achievements, experience, proposed research plan, evaluating study parameters. The selection committee will comprise of Director of the concerned ICAR-DU, Joint Director Research, DDG (Agriculture Education), Joint Director (Academic) and two Subject Matter Specialists (not below the rank of Prof./ Prin. Sci.) from outside the host institute. Based on the recommendations by this Selection Committee, ICAR-PDF will be selected. An interview/presentation will be conducted by the Selection Committee and the candidates will be asked to present the research plan.
After selection, the candidate should register for the programme according to the schedule; time and date intimated by the respective ICAR- DU. he/she must provide At the time of joining, the candidate will have to give an undertaking on the prescribed format (Appendix-1) available at the website of ICAR.

Leave rules

Leaves will be granted to the ICAR post-doctoral fellows as per the GOI rules of the host institution.
If ICAR-PDFs participate in Scientific Conferences/ Seminars/Symposia/Workshops in this case the leave will be treated as on duty.
Female ICAR-PDFs will be entitled to Maternity leave According to the Govt. of India rules. However, if the leave duration will exceed three months, fellowship wouldn't be admissible.
The fellow will not be away from the host institute except the project fieldwork and for attending a seminar/workshop/ conference/symposia and he/she should seek consent from the host institution for leave.

Fellowship termination

In case of unsatisfactory performance and improper use of research grant, the ICAR reserves the rights of termination of the fellowship of any candidate at any stage. However, in case a fellow want to terminate the fellowship, he can do by informing the ICAR throughout the mentor and host institute immediately. In this case, any expenditure will not be borne by the implementing institute from the date of resignation of the post-doctoral fellow.

Review of progress of research work

There will be a review of progress and research work done by the ICAR PDF on quarterly, half-yearly and annual basis.

The quarterly review will be done by an Institute level Committee comprising Director of the ICAR-DU, concerned Head of the Department and Mentor of the ICAR-PDF.
The half-yearly progress will be done by the Selection Committee for ICAR-PDF. Only after the approval of the report, 2nd grant instalment will be released by the Council.
An institute committee comprising of Director of the concerned ICAR-DU /concerned authority will review the Annual Performance Appraisal Report (APAR) of this ICAR post-doctoral fellow made by the Mentor as Reporting Officer. Comments and observation sought by the committee will be attached with the APAR.

The finding of the research of ICAR-PDF must be published/ communicated in a peer-reviewed journal having NAAS rating not less than 7.0. The copy of this publication ought to be submitted together with the final project report.
A Final Report including progress report and annual report shall be uploaded on the Agricultural Education Portal by the ICAR-PDF.

Intellectual Property Rights Matters

The fellow must have to sign an IP agreement to protect the Intellectual Property Rights generated during his/her project term.
The Council will have the appropriate share On the patents/protections/knowledge generated during the project according to the "ICAR Guidelines for Intellectual Property Management and Technology Transfer/Commercialization" as amended from time to time.
Support from the Council must be acknowledged in each publication by the ICAR-PDF.

Last Date: Interested candidates can apply by 30 Jul 2020.

Contact information

For more information please contact:
Indian Council of Agricultural Research
Education Division, Krishi Anusandhan Bhavan II
New Delhi 110 012