Funding Sources

Let’s answer all three questions one by one:  (i) What are some fellowships or grants in India for women scientists?  There are several offerings by the Government of India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Department of Biotechnology (DBT), as well as others:  Women Scientist Scheme by DST (schemes A and B for research in basic & applied sciences and for science and technology interventions for societal benefit, respectively  WISE Post-Doctoral Fellowship by DST for women in science and engineering  BioCARe by DBT  UGC’s Post Doctoral Fellowship for Women  Indo-U.S. Fellowship for Women in STEMM (https://iusstf.org/indo-u-s-fellowship-for-women-in-stemm-wistemm-)  SERB-National Post Doctoral Fellowship    (ii) Where can I find out about them, and what are the eligibility criteria?  The links to each fellowship include the eligibility criteria (e.g., age, experience).   (iii) Do I need to work in the same institute if I get a grant for starting a research project?  No, it is not necessary that you work in the same institute once you receive such grants. 

Thank you for your question. Note that the journal to which you are submitting to may have a specific format for citing funding information. We would therefore request you to use that specific format. However, we’ve listed two common formats for citing funding information:Format 1: This work was supported by Institution 1 [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; Institution 2 [grant number zzzz]; and Institution 3 [grant number aaaa].Format 2: This research was funded by NAME OF FUNDER, grant number XXX.Irrespective of the format used, most journals will require the following information to be provided: specific grant numbers, initials of authors who received each award, full names of commercial companies that funded the study or authors, initials of authors who received salary or other funding from commercial companies, and URLs to sponsors’ websites.Hope this helps. All the best for your submission.

That’s a very pertinent question. [Incidentally, we’ve made one small but important edit to the question. We’ve removed the ‘not’ before ‘modest,’ because that would have meant the entirely opposite thing. :-)] Coming back to your query, we also think it would be best to hear responses from postdocs themselves. So, we’ve turned this over to the relevant folk here as well as elsewhere for their say. Until then, on the forum/site, we thought we could share other relevant career-related resources with you. You may have already gone through the piece on survival strategies for postdocs. So, as you had tagged this under ‘funding resources,’ you might find this article useful: Have you considered non-governmental organizations for research funds? Additionally, and tangentially, here’s a piece on managing another equally important resource – time: 10 Tried and tested time management tips for researchers Hope these help for now.

This would depend on the journal and the system they follow. Not all journals allow this, in which case, you may need to withdraw your manuscript and submit elsewhere. You can check if the journal allows updates by seeing if you can make revisions to the submission form. If not, you will need to contact the journal about your situation. If they are okay with this, they may also guide you on how to do this. Sometimes, they provide a separate link where you can upload the updated form, or they may allow you to do so my mail itself.If you are worried about contacting the editor for this, you needn’t be: in most cases, editors (or even the admin team) are quite supportive. However, in case they are not, as mentioned earlier, you may withdraw your manuscript and submit to another journal. (In this eventuality, ensure you receive a confirmation of the withdrawal, save this communication, and share this information with the next journal to ensure a clean, transparent transaction both ways.)Also, to avoid such a scenario for future submissions, it would help to prepare a submission package that is complete in all respects and have a checklist that helps...

From what I understand, you wish to know if journals have any fee concession policy for researchers who do not have sufficient funds.There are two different models of publishing: the subscription model and the open access model. Subscription journals do not require the author to pay anything, but the reader needs to pay to get access to the published article. The problem with this model is that your article will not get a wide outreach as journal subscription charges are quite high and generally only institutions can afford it. The other model of publishing is open access in which the published article is freely accessible for readers, but the author generally has to pay a publication fee, also known as article processing charges. Article processing charges vary across journals and some journals have a very nominal fee. Additionally, not all open access journals charge APCs, and there are some not-for-profit journals that publish open access without charging the authors. However, many open access journals have concession or fee waiver policies in place. Most of these journals offer concessions or fee waivers to researchers from low-income countries. Also, many open access journals consider fee waiver requests from authors who are under financial constraints. For example,...

Research objectives summarize the accomplishments a researcher wishes to achieve through the project and provides direction to the study. Basically, the research objectives should lay down the steps, that is, the specific or direct actions that you will take to achieve your study goals. To formulate your research objectives, these are the steps you must take:1. You should first be clear about the research problem you wish to address.2. Once this is done, you should come up with the aim or goal your research, that is, broadly identify what you wish to achieve through this study.3. Next, lay down the specific steps or actions that need to be done to achieve this goal. These will form your research objectives.You will find interesting inputs on how to go about determining the questions that will help you form suitable research objectives in the links below:Can you clarify some basic concepts related to the research process?How to choose a research questionHow can I choose a suitable research question?Finding the right research question - the first step to successful publication

The steps or process, of writing a research proposal are, in many ways, similar to that for writing a research paper. You identify a broad research area, read up the current literature in the area, identify gaps in research, and eventually, identify a research question or hypothesis. A proposal statement is also structured similar to a research paper, with an abstract, introduction, hypothesis, and proposed methodology. However, in some ways, writing a proposal statement can seem even tougher than writing a research paper, because the intention of a proposal is to secure a grant, which can be a challenging thing to do. The proposal should therefore be written to persuade the funding agency to grant the fund. Therefore, I can understand your desire to write a “perfect” or strong proposal. We have several resources on how to go about doing this. Here are a few popular ones.10 Tips to write an effective research grant proposal: Along with points to include in the proposal, this also talks about things to do before writing the proposal.9 Core parts every grant proposal must contain: This is a downloadable infographic (which you can use as a ready reckoner) of the key points in the above article.How to write a...

The rationale of your research problem is the reason for conducting the study. The rationale should answer the need for conducting the said research. It is a very important part of your publication as it justifies the significance and novelty of your research problem. To write your rationale, you should first write a background on all the research that has been done on your study topic so far. Follow this with ‘what is missing’ or ‘what are the open questions of the study’. Identify the gaps in the literature and emphasize why it is important to address those gaps. This will form the rationale of your study. The rationale should be followed by a hypothesis and objectives.Related reading:How can I come up with a research problem, research objectives, and research hypothesis?The basics of writing a statement of the problem for your research proposal [Downloadable template]

Writing an effective research proposal is essential to acquire funding for your research. The introduction, being the first part of your proposal, must provide the funders a clear understanding of what you plan to do. A well written introduction will help make a compelling case for your research proposal. To begin with, the introduction must set context for your research by mentioning what is known about the topic and what needs to be explored further. In the introduction, you can highlight how your research will contribute to the existing knowledge in your field and to overall scientific development. The introduction must also contain a hypothesis that led to the development of the research design. You can come up with this hypotheis by asking yourself questions like:What is the central research problem?What is the topic of study related to that problem?What methods should be used to analyze the research problem?Why is this research important, what is its significance, and how will its outcomes affect the funders and the society on the whole?   Here are some excellent resources to help you write a great proposal:COURSE: How to write a grant proposal10 Tips to write an effective research grant proposalINFOGRAPHIC: 9 Core parts every...

Thanks for your question. A very similar question has been answered here: How do I write the methods section of a research proposal?Please go through the response to this question. I'm sure you will find it helpful.