Research Vision of the Institute

The office of Research and Development of IISER Kolkata leads the research agenda across the Institute. It provides the foundation for continued development of departmental research and interdisciplinary research initiatives. The agenda include:

• Providing a supportive research environment in which faculty members and research students can flourish and develop in every stage of their career.
• Encouraging collaboration and partnership with other research institutes and industries, nationally and internationally.
• Encouraging multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research programmes to address many of the major challenges faced by our society.
• Facilitating submission of project proposals to external funding agencies.

Role in Creating State-of-the-Art Research Facilities

The office of Research and Development provides the faculty with information and procedure for extramural funds for creating research facilities and research centres. Besides this, the R&D office will coordinate with different academic Departments to identify and procure required instruments at Institute and department levels.

• For any purchase from externally funded projects and start-up grants the PI should directly send the indents to the office of DoRD.
• For any purchase using Institute funds (other than start-up grant), faculty members should send the indents to the purchase department via respective HoD.

Distribution of Institute Funds for Research

The office of Research and Development is involved in distribution of Institute funds (if needed) for research of faculty members. The R&D office will consider requests by faculty members of any academic Department (should be collated by the respective HoDs) for fund allocation for research purpose with proper justification. An Institute level committee will be formed by the Director to assess the proposal(s) for consideration and allocation of fund.

Matching Grants for Major Project Submitted for Funding

This is an additional grant to make up for a short-fall in the funding of high-end equipment due to reduction in the proposed budget by an external agency. Under such circumstances, the office of Research and Development will consider request of a PI and an Institute level committee will be appointed by the Director to decide about the amount of matching grant on a case-by-case basis.

Development of Human Resources

1. Research Fellowships (e.g. Ramanujan, Ramalingaswamy, Wellcome-DBT etc.)

   The office of Research and Development encourages and assists faculty members to apply for prestigious research fellowships such as Ramanujan Fellowship, Ramalingaswamy Fellowship, Wellcome Trust-DBT Fellowship for career advancement of a faculty member. The office of Research and Development is responsible for managing the mentioned Research Fellowship of faculty members.

2. Postdoctoral Fellowship

   Generally, postdoctoral fellows with their own fellowships or through external funded projects will be encouraged to join IISER Kolkata. However, Institute may consider providing two postdoctoral fellows (IISER-K PDFs) per department at a given time. Such IISER-K PDFs will be selected by a selection committee comprising the DoRD, the HoD, and two other faculty members (as experts) from the concerned Department.

3. Provision for Pre-doctoral Institute Fellowship

   To facilitate the research programme of IISER-K and to maintain uniformity among the faculty members, IISER-K will provide Institute fellowship to a selected number of students. A faculty member of IISER Kolkata can have only one institute fellow at a given time under the following circumstances:

   1. The total number of IISER funded fellows should not exceed the number of faculty members in a particular department.

Interaction with other Institutes/Industries – National and International

The office of Research and Development encourages the faculty members to collaborate with other institutes/industries both at national and international level for research purpose. The R&D office will act to establish a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for bilateral and multilateral agreements between collaborating institutes/industries.

Research Centers

The office plays an active role in establishing Research Centers, when the situation demands. This is an initiative to facilitate interdisciplinary research.