HRD Ministry launches IMPRESS Scheme to promote Research in Social Sciences

October 25, 2018

On October 25, 2018, the Central Government has announced formal launch Impactful Policy Research in Social Sciences (IMPRESS) scheme to promote research in Social Sciences. The objective of this scheme is to identify and fund research proposals in social sciences with maximum impact on the governance and society. The government support would include a total funding of Rs.414 crore on 1500 projects for policy themes in the social sciences at the cost of Rs. 20-25 Lakh per project.

Thematic Areas

Under the scheme, support is to be provided for projects on 11 broad thematic areas as follows:

  1. State and Democracy
  2. Urban transformation,
  3. Media, Culture and Society
  4. Employment, Skills and Rural transformation
  5. Governance, Innovation and Public Policy
  6. Growth, Macro-trade and Economic Policy
  7. Agriculture and Rural Development
  8. Health and Environment
  9. Science and Education
  10. Social Media and Technology
  11. Politics, Law and Economics.

The Sub-Theme areas will be decided on the basis of Expert Groups’ advice before notifying the scheme and calling for applications.

  • To ensure selection of projects through a transparent, competitive process on online mode.
  • To provide opportunity for social science researchers in any institution in the country, including all Universities (Central and State), private institutions.
  • ICSSR funded/recognised research institutes will also be eligible to submit research proposals on the given themes and sub-themes.

Nodal Agency

The Indian Council of Social Science and Research (ICSSR) will be the project implementing agency.

Modalities for implementation:

There will be calls for proposals and the process of evaluation of the proposals and selection will be completed within 90 days from the date of call for proposals. The experts for evaluation of proposals will be persons of eminence and selected using objective criteria. There will be a regular monitoring of the progress of projects using the online portal, in which the progress can be directly updated by the Project Coordinator. Also, there will be a third party evaluation of the project.

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