11th International Cell & Gene Therapy Conference (CGTCON 2026) aims to bring students, research scholars, postdoctoral fellows, scientist, clinicians, academicians, industry and regulatory experts together to exchange insights on recent advancements, translational challenges from bench to bedside, and future directions in cell and gene therapies for currently incurable diseases.
Department of Biotechnology invites applications under the *Biotechnology Career Advancement and Re-orientation (BioCARe) Programme for Women Researchers* for the Year 2026-27.
The duration of the project will be up to 3 years
Ph.D./MD/MDS/M.V.Sc. or M.Tech./M.Pharma/equivalent qualification
Interested candidates may submit the online application through the Common Fellowship Portal of the Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India (https://fellowships.gov.in). The Terms & Conditions of the BioCARe programme are available at Department of Biotechnology website (https://dbt.gov.in).
For assistance, contact DBT-Human Resource Development Project Management Unit (PMU), Regional Centre for Biotechnology, NCR Biotech Science Cluster, 3rd Milestone, Faridabad-Gurugram Expressway, Faridabad, Haryana-121001; Email: biocare.dbt@rcb.res.in; Tel: +91-129-2848531/536.
For more information click here.
]]>Online applications (through email) are invited from eligible candidates for the post of Project Associate I, purely on contractual basis in the extramural research project titled “Role of long non-coding RNAs in predicting the chemosensitivity of triple-negative breast cancer”, sanctioned for up to 3 years from Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India (No BT/PR54005/NER/95/2208/2024, dated 18.06.2026), under Dr. Subash Chandra Gupta, Professor and Head, Department of Biochemistry, AIIMS Guwahati.
The project is sanctioned up to three years. The appointment will be on temporary basis for a period of one year. Based on the performance in first year, the appointment could be extended till the end of the project.
Postgraduate degree (with minimum 55% marks) including the integrated PG degrees in Biochemistry/Biotechnology/Biological Sciences or a related discipline.
Desirable:
For more information click Here
]]>EMBO and IndiaBioscience are jointly responsible for processing the personal data collected through this application form for the purposes of reviewing applications, selecting participants, and administering and organising the course.
This series of four curated courses is designed to help the life science community in India build essential research and career skills, covering fellowship writing, scientific writing and presentation, manuscript writing and peer review, and a dedicated course for group leaders.
This year, based on the need of training and mentorship in the early years of building a lab, in addition to the in-person lab leadership courses, EMBO also accepted IBS’s request to have an online course.
The Starting Your Own Lab course will be held from 28–30 October 2026 targeted at junior group leaders. The course is split into three afternoons.
Day 1 & 2 from and Day 3 from 12:30 - 16:30 (IST).
Having navigated a PhD and a postdoc, junior group leaders face a new and exciting challenge: setting up their own laboratory and leading a team. The move from bench to PI's desk is a steep learning curve and one that most of us are rarely prepared for. This course is designed to help. Over two interactive days, participants will be introduced to the key concepts and practicalities of establishing their first laboratory, from allocating resources effectively to managing people and building a team culture. Sessions will combine discussion with hands-on practice.
The course has been curated by Leadership sculptor with Petra Pandur, PhD, and David Lescheid, PhD, as trainers.
Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology is organising Two days workshop in "In Vitro Cancer cell culture techniques" which will be held on September 17th to 18th, 2026 at our Cancer biology lab, International Research Centre, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai through Physical mode.
The program will cover an introduction to in vitro cancer cell maintenance and Hands on Training in performing on Subculturing and Cell counting, Cryopreservation and revival of cells, Cytotoxicity assays (MTT), Apoptotic staining & Analysis, Propidium Iodide staining. Participants will gain insights into in vitro and advanced imaging techniques. The workshop also includes intensive practical training modules and detailed sessions on cancer cell culture for experimental research.
WHO CAN ATTEND: UG/PG students, Research Scholars, Scientists, Faculties, and industrial people are eligible to apply.
In a high-tech lab in Bengaluru, the future of medicine isn't being found in a synthetic compound or a sterile petri dish. Instead, it’s sitting inside a hundred year old jar, the ceramic gone the color of weak tea, and it has never once been washed clean. It has traveled from a kitchen in Madurai to a laboratory in Bengaluru, passed hand to hand through four generations of the same family, each of them feeding it the same way their mothers did: a little rice, a little urad dal, water, warmth, and much patience. What's inside the jar is idli batter or it will be, in a few hours, once the fermentation does its quiet work. But to the scientists who have started studying jars like this one, what's inside is something more than just fermented food. A hundred years of continuous microbial life, shaped by nothing more than one family's hands and one region's air, still humming along exactly as it did before India had refrigerators, before it had antibiotics, before it had the word "probiotic."
That jar is the reason this story exists. And it's also, unfortunately, becoming a kind of elegy.
When researchers ran the starter culture through modern metagenomic sequencing, the technique that reads the genetic material of an entire microbial community at once, rather than trying to grow and identify each organism one at a time, they found what they expected: familiar genera like Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces, the workhorse organisms of fermentation everywhere. But a portion of the genetic material simply didn't match anything in the reference databases scientists use to identify microbial life. It was not contamination or a sequencing error but rather organisms, and possibly whole functional pathways, that haven't been catalogued.
Researchers have started calling this the "dark microbiome," borrowing the metaphor from dark matter: something whose presence is unmistakable even though its nature isn't yet mapped. The open questions are the interesting part. Are these previously undocumented species, or known species carrying genes nobody has annotated yet? Do they produce metabolites: the small molecules that gut bacteria use to communicate to the immune system, regulate inflammation, or break down fiber the human body can't digest on its own, that aren't found in the commercial probiotic strains sold in pharmacies? Nobody can say yet with certainty. That uncertainty is precisely why a hundred-year-old jar of idli batter has become a research subject instead of just food for breakfast.
This discovery matters beyond scientific curiosity as this jar, and thousands like it sitting in kitchens across the country, may hold the last intact record of a gut ecosystem that the rest of India is actively losing.
A mapping study by BRIC-National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), set out to compare the gut microbiomes of urban and rural Indian populations, and what it found reads more like a warning. As diets shift away from high-fiber, minimally processed regional food toward packaged and processed alternatives, microbial diversity in the gut is falling. It is not gradually reshuffling, but narrowing, with entire lineages of native bacteria becoming harder to find in urban guts than in rural ones eating more traditional diets.
This isn't an abstract statistic. It shows up in bodies. The Indian Society of Gastroenterology's own position statement puts GERD prevalence in India between 7.6 and 30 percent, typically under 10 percent in general population studies, but climbing considerably higher in clinical cohorts, a gap that itself points to how much chronic acidity goes unmeasured outside a doctor's office. Layered on top of that is Helicobacter pylori, the bacterium behind most peptic ulcers. A 2025 systematic review pooling 52 studies across 15 Indian states put national prevalence at roughly 54 to 61 percent of adults though the real picture is far patchier than one number suggests, ranging from under 10 percent in Gujarat to nearly 70 percent in Rajasthan. Most of those infected are unaware about carrying it, because the infection is often silent for years before it starts to show.
None of these problems exist in isolation from each other. A gut stripped of the fiber-fermenting bacteria that once buffered it is a gut with less defense against the pathogens moving in, less capacity to regulate inflammation, and increasingly, researchers suspect, it becomes a gut more vulnerable to the metabolic disorders climbing across urban India: rising rates of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and inflammatory bowel disease that track disturbingly closely with the shift toward processed food. Add to that the slow creep of antibiotic overuse, which doesn't just kill the infection it's aimed at but takes out swaths of the resident microbial community along with it, and the picture that emerges isn't of a single disease but of an ecosystem in retreat.
Which is what makes the jar in Bengaluru feel less like a curiosity and more like a time capsule. It's a working sample of what an Indian gut microbiome looked like before the fiber disappeared from the plate, before antibiotics became routine, before "protective bacteria" became something you had to go looking for in a hundred-year-old family heirloom instead of finding it, unremarkably, in everyone's gut.
For years, the default response to gut trouble in India has been the same pill that claims to work everywhere else: a probiotic capsule loaded with Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus strains isolated from European or American populations. Increasingly, researchers studying the Indian gut say this approach is failing on its own terms. Strains selected for a gut shaped by a Western, lower-fiber, higher-fat diet often don't colonize a gut shaped by centuries of a fiber-heavy, plant-forward Indian diet. It's less like taking medicine and more like transplanting a species built for one climate into an ecosystem that was never going to sustain it.
Indigenous fermented foods like gundruk: the sun-dried fermented mustard greens of the Himalayan belt; kanji: rice fermented overnight into a tangy, faintly effervescent drink; and idli batter itself aren't just old recipes. Researchers increasingly view them as microbial reservoirs, cultivated over generations to survive the specific gauntlet of the Indian digestive tract: the acid, the bile, the long transit to the colon. Some scientists in this space have started using the phrase "microbial decolonization" to describe the shift they're pushing for , away from imported, one-size-fits-all microbial solutions, and toward the diet-specific ecosystems that were already sitting in Indian kitchens the whole time.
Yogesh Shouche, the NCCS scientist whose lab has spent years studying the Indian gut, has traced his own interest in the subject back to a conversation with a pediatrician friend, who told him that commercial probiotics which are built for Western populations simply weren't working for Indian patients, and that almost no one had studied why. That gap is what set Shouche on this path in the first place. In earlier interviews, he's been skeptical that there's even a single "Indian gut microbiome" to speak of and his expectation is that India's diversity will surface as a patchwork of regional and ethnic cores rather than one common baseline, shaped by exactly the geography and food habits now being flattened by urban diets.
That gap between imported solutions and Indian biology has been measured. In the largest gut microbiome study of the Indian population to date, spanning 110 subjects across north and south India and benchmarked against nine other populations worldwide, researchers at IISER Bhopal found that geography and diet leave a distinct signature on the Indian gut, one unlike anything catalogued elsewhere. "Diet has been known to be the key driver in shaping the gut microbiome. Indian population has diverse lifestyles and food habits, and so far, the Indian gut genome is not well explored," says Vineet Sharma, the IISER Bhopal scientist who led the study. It's a fitting admission from the researcher who mapped it most closely: even the most extensive Indian gut study on record is still, by his own account, an early sketch of something far larger.
That reservoir is also feeding into a broader push toward precision medicine in India, where researchers are combining genomic tools with the Ayurvedic concept of prakriti, an individual's constitutional type, in a field some are calling Ayurgenomics. The World Health Organization has flagged India's work integrating artificial intelligence with traditional medicine as a notable development in this space. But that's the second story, not this one. The first story is simpler and more urgent: something is disappearing from the Indian gut faster than science can finish describing it.
Which brings the story back to Bengaluru, to the ceramic jar that has never been washed. It isn't precious because it's old. It's precious because it's still alive, a hundred years of uninterrupted microbial continuity, still doing in a lab today exactly what it did in a Madurai kitchen a century ago. Everything the NCCS study found missing from the modern urban gut is, in some form, still fermenting quietly inside jars like this one, in kitchens most of the country has already stopped keeping.
The scientists studying it aren't chasing a new drug. They're racing to read a record before the last jars stop being refilled, before the grandmothers who know exactly how much rice and how much water stop being around to teach the next generation, before "dark microbiome" stops meaning not yet catalogued and starts meaning gone. The next major advance in Indian gut health may not come from a laboratory at all. It may just come from finally listening to what's been sitting on the counter the whole time, from the simple act of recognition.
The FABA–Shantha Excellence Awards recognise promising young scientists and doctoral researchers whose work is making a meaningful impact in biotechnology.
Awards will be presented at the MCADDI 2026 Conference in Hyderabad.
As this is an award initiative intended to recognise and support young scientists and doctoral researchers, we would be grateful if IndiaBioscience could consider publishing the FABA- Shantha Excellence Awards announcement as a complimentary/free listing.
AABC 2026 is an international platform jointly organised by FABA and the Arab Society for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ASGEB), bringing together researchers, industry leaders, startups, policymakers, and young scientists from Asia and the Arab region.
The Congress will feature:
1. Keynote and plenary lectures
2. Parallel thematic sessions and panel discussions
3. Poster Presentations
4. Short Oral / Flash Presentations for young scientists
5. Oral Presentations
6. Biotechnology Startup & Industry Showcase
7. Industry matchmaking and networking
8. Genome Valley visit
Thematic areas include genome editing and CRISPR, AI-driven biotechnology, drug discovery and development, precision medicine, cell and gene therapy, agricultural biotechnology, and industrial and environmental biotechnology.
Selected papers presented at the Congress will also be considered for fast-track publication in a Special Issue of the Journal of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (Elsevier), subject to peer review.
The International Human Frontier Science Program strives to strengthen open scientific inquiry by initiating international collaborative, interdisciplinary and cutting-edge basic research in the life sciences. The program funds projects in basic research studying fundamental problems on all levels of life sciences. The HFSP supports novel collaborations that may lead to a breakthrough by bringing together scientists with distinct expertise from the life sciences and other disciplines such as mathematics, physics, engineering or psychology to focus on problems at the frontiers of the life sciences.
The new HFSP Accelerator Grant, based on the HFSP Shared Values, will contribute to strengthening diversity, equity, and inclusion. It supports the partnering of awarded HFSP Research Grant teams with excellent researchers in selected member countries. All teams who have been awarded a Research Grant – Program or a Research Grant – Early Career 2026 are invited to apply for HFSP Accelerator Grants to support the integration of one additional scientist – the accelerator team member – in the awarded HFSP grant project and team.
The HFSP Accelerator Grant offers mutual benefit for both the awarded research team and the accelerator member. The new team member integrates into a high-quality research team that was successful in one of the most competitive peer review selections in the life sciences. The grant team has the chance to complement their research plan by integrating an additional member with corresponding expertise, skills, and knowledge.
Applications for HFSP Accelerator Grants are submitted by the PI of an HFSP grant team (on behalf of the awarded team), together with the accelerator team member.
Applications are reviewed by the Research Grant Review Committee and discussed at their annual meeting in January. The review will be based on the research plan as well as CV and selected publications by the accelerator team member. Reviewers will consider whether and how the new member’s expertise and skills complement the research team, how the proposed research line and activities will support them in reaching the set research goals, thus, on the added value for the HFSP project.
For more information click here
]]>
Travel: the fellowship includes provision for travel expenses from the participant’s home country to the ICGEB lab at the beginning of the fellowship and a return travel provision upon completion of the fellowship.
Medical health insurance coverage is provided for the duration of the fellowship.
Visa/permit of stay application and renewal costs are reimbursed.
]]>ICGEB offers Short-term fellowships for Pre-doctoral studies in ICGEB Component laboratories to fund collaborative research between scientists from ICGEB Member States and research groups at ICGEB laboratories in Trieste, Italy, New Delhi, India and Cape Town, South Africa, to facilitate access to the latest research techniques and to strengthen capacity building.
1-12 months
Monthly stipend: Trieste (Italy): Euro 1,500, New Delhi (India): US$1,122, Cape Town (South Africa): ZAR 16,500.
Travel: the fellowship includes provision for travel expenses from the participant’s home country to the ICGEB lab at the beginning of the fellowship and a return travel provision upon completion of the fellowship.
Medical health insurance coverage is provided for the duration of the fellowship.
Visa/permit of stay application and renewal costs are reimbursed.
Applicants must be nationals of an ICGEB Member State and may not apply for fellowships to be undertaken in their country of origin, unless working abroad at the time of application.
Degree requirements: applicants for ICGEB Trieste and Cape Town should hold a BSc (Honours) degree; applicants for ICGEB New Delhi should hold an MSc degree.
Candidates must have a good working knowledge of the English language, supported by a proficiency certificate (TOEFL, Cambridge Certificate, or equivalent). This document is not required when English was the medium of instruction; however, the university must provide an official certificate attesting to this.
Please note that you will be requested to upload the following documents (PDF files):
(i) Your full CV
(ii) A valid identification document (passport or identity card). Recommended passport validity should be at least 12 months.
(iii) English Certificate (TOEFL, Cambridge or similar). This document is not required when English was the medium of instruction; however, the university must provide an official certificate attesting to this.
For more information click here
]]>Applications are invited from Indian nationals with excellent academic and research backgrounds for the post of Research Associate - I on the Department of Science & Technology-Cognitive Science Research Initiative (DSTCSRI).
The appointment will be on a purely temporary basis for 7 months, starting as soon as possible and extendable for another 2 years based on performance and availability of funding.
Rs. 58,000 /- + 30% HRA (HRA will be provided only if not taking hostel facility)
Ph.D./MD/MS/MDS or equivalent degree or having 3 years of research, teaching, and design and development experience (in life science and related areas) after MVSc/M.Pharm/ME/M.Tech.
At least one research paper in Science Citation Indexed (SCI) journals
Candidates with prior research experience (two years or more after Ph.D.) in the following areas will be given preference.
Interested candidates meeting the above criteria should fill in the Google form using the following link (https://forms.gle/Cui1m2we4kCSbvoK7) by 31st August 2026 (incomplete applications will not be evaluated).
For any query in this regard, candidates may write to Dr. Sandipan Ray (Email: sandipan.ray@bt.iith.ac.in), Department of Biotechnology.
Candidates will be shortlisted for the interview based on their academic records and relevant work experience. Only shortlisted candidates will be notified via email about the online interview by early September 2026. Please note that merely meeting the eligibility criteria does not guarantee a call for an interview. The PI reserves the right to leave the position vacant if no suitable candidate is found.
For more details click here
]]>DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance, Hyderabad, invites applications from suitably qualified, experienced, mid-senior career individuals for the position of Grants Manager. The role requires full-time engagement and is ideal for those actively progressing in their professional careers.
The Grants Manager will co-lead the Fellowships & Grants team alongside another Grants Manager and share responsibility for the full portfolio of applications and awards. Working collaboratively, the two Grants Managers provide leadership for the grants management function, with each overseeing designated areas of responsibility while contributing to the overall planning, delivery and continuous improvement of the portfolio.
The role is responsible for ensuring the quality, accuracy and timeliness of the work undertaken by the grants management team, maintaining adherence to established procedures and organisational standards. It includes developing and delivering training to strengthen team capabilities, fostering a collaborative and high-performing environment, and working closely with internal and external stakeholders to ensure the smooth delivery of funding competitions.
The Grants Manager plans, coordinates and manages Fellowship and/or Grants programmes across the funding lifecycle, including application management, peer review, award administration, post-award management, monitoring, reporting, compliance, award variations, impact assessment and stewardship. The role also involves gathering and analysing feedback from Fellows, reviewers, committee members and other stakeholders to support the continuous improvement of funding programmes, policies and operational processes.
Working together, the Grants Managers are responsible for effective people and resource management, organisational change management, stakeholder engagement, and the identification and implementation of improvements to policies, practices and operational processes. They oversee periodic reviews and audits to ensure compliance with organisational policies, standard operating procedures, funding regulations and governance requirements, while identifying and managing operational risks, including those relating to business continuity and disaster recovery.
The successful candidate will be expected to work effectively across teams and sectors, exercise sound judgement, uphold high standards of quality and consistency, and maintain a clear understanding of the mission, strategic priorities and operating principles of the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance.
The appointment will be in accordance with DBT/WT India Alliance rules and regulations. The position carries a fixed-term contract of up to five years from the date of joining, or until 1 April 2031, whichever is earlier, and includes a probation period of 3-6 months, depending on prior experience. Ongoing appointment within the five-year term is dependent on satisfactory outcomes of annual performance reviews.
The consolidated monthly remuneration is between ₹1.8-2.0 Lakh (Accident and Medical Insurance is provided as an additional benefit), based on qualifications and experience, as determined at the time of selection.
PhD in Life Sciences or a related discipline.
Desirable
DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance reserves the right to extend the application deadline, not to make an appointment, or to re-advertise the position if no suitable candidate is identified after the interviews.
TO APPLY, PLEASE CLICK here.
All responses should be completed within the form. Kindly note that additional documents or uploads cannot be considered.
For more information click here
]]>India Alliance is seeking an experienced and motivated Manager – Communications & Engagement to lead the organisation's communications and engagement function.
Working closely with the CEO and senior leadership, the Manager will lead a small Communications & Engagement team to develop and deliver high-quality communications that support the India Alliance's strategic priorities, programmes and partnerships. The role will translate organisational objectives into compelling content, campaigns and engagement activities that strengthen the visibility and impact of India Alliance and the research supported under the aegis of the BRCP.
The successful candidate will combine excellent communication and organisational skills with creativity and sound judgement, leading the development of written, digital and multimedia communications, overseeing major organisational events and public engagement activities, and fostering a collaborative, high-performing team. The role requires the ability to communicate complex scientific ideas clearly and effectively to diverse audiences while ensuring consistently high standards across all communications. The successful candidate will also oversee high-quality communications outputs, develop new engagement initiatives, and support organisational priorities through effective planning and execution.
Five years from the date of joining or until April 1, 2031, whichever is earlier, including a probation period of 6 months.
The consolidated monthly remuneration is between ₹1.8-2.0 Lakh (Accident and Medical Insurance is provided as an additional benefit), based on qualifications and experience, as determined at the time of selection.
Master's degree in Life Sciences, Biological Sciences, Public Health and, Masters/Post Graduate diploma in Journalism or Mass Communication/Science Communication Or,
A PhD/Master's degree in Life Sciences, Biological Sciences, Public Health, or another relevant scientific discipline together with experience in communications and stakeholder engagement.
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for further interactions and processing of their applications. Selected candidates will be informed at the earliest once a final decision has been made.
DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance reserves the right to extend the application deadline, not to make an appointment, or to re-advertise the position if no suitable candidate is identified after the interviews. No correspondence will be entertained regarding this advertisement.
The position is based in Hyderabad; remote working is not available.
To apply, please click here.
For more information click here
]]>
When we first started discussing science outreach activities for children in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, one question kept returning to us: Who is usually left out of science communication?
Most science outreach programmes are designed for mainstream classrooms. They assume that participants can read printed material, follow verbal explanations, or perform experiments in conventional ways. But what about children with visual impairments, hearing impairments, intellectual disabilities, or developmental challenges? They are often excluded—not because they lack curiosity, but because outreach activities are rarely designed with accessibility in mind.
That realisation became the starting point of our project, Science for All: Fun Learning Activities to Challenge Myths and Superstitions Among Specially-Abled Children, supported through the 6th IndiaBioscience Outreach Grant.
Our motivation went beyond making science enjoyable. During interactions with teachers and community members, we observed that myths and superstitions continue to influence how many everyday events—health, illness, eclipses, weather, or environmental changes—are understood. For children who already face barriers in accessing quality education, opportunities to develop scientific reasoning are even more limited. We wondered whether accessible, hands-on science activities could help nurture curiosity while encouraging children to ask questions rather than accept explanations unquestioningly.
We chose outreach instead of a conventional educational intervention because outreach allows science to be experienced rather than simply taught. Interactive storytelling, demonstrations, drawing activities, and conversations can create an environment where every child participates according to their abilities. We hoped that by adapting activities to different sensory and learning needs, we could make science feel inclusive rather than intimidating.
At the beginning, we assumed that our biggest challenge would be simplifying scientific concepts. We soon discovered that this was not the case.
The real challenge was learning how to communicate differently with different groups of children. A single activity rarely worked equally well for everyone. Some children responded enthusiastically to visual demonstrations, while others preferred tactile experiences, storytelling, or one-to-one interactions. We quickly realised that accessibility is not about creating one "special" activity—it is about being flexible enough to modify every activity according to the needs of participants.
Working closely with special educators became one of the most valuable aspects of the project. Their insights helped us rethink our assumptions about learning and participation. Rather than focusing on what children could not do, they encouraged us to build activities around what children enjoyed and how they naturally engaged with the world.
Our first major outreach programme at Composite School Majhola brought together children with visual, hearing, and intellectual disabilities. We designed storytelling sessions around everyday scientific phenomena and encouraged children to discuss why certain commonly held beliefs may not always have scientific evidence behind them. Drawing and creative expression activities helped children communicate ideas about environmental protection, water conservation, and global warming in ways that did not depend solely on spoken language.
The children's enthusiasm was one of the biggest surprises. Some participants who were initially hesitant, gradually began asking questions, sharing observations, and participating actively in discussions. Their curiosity reminded us that interest in science is rarely absent, it simply needs the right environment to emerge.
Our second activity at Prathmik Vidyalaya Imratpur reinforced another important lesson. While we had initially focused primarily on the children, we realised that lasting change depends equally on teachers, parents, and community members. Many discussions naturally expanded beyond science experiments to conversations about hygiene, environmental responsibility, and critical thinking in everyday life. We began to see the project not just as science communication for children, but as community engagement through science.
Not everything went according to plan.
Some activities required far more time than we had anticipated because they had to be adapted on the spot. Communication methods that worked in one classroom were less effective in another. Coordinating schools, educators, parents, and local authorities also demanded considerably more planning than we had expected. These logistical challenges reminded us that successful outreach depends as much on relationships and preparation as on scientific content.
Perhaps our biggest learning was that inclusion cannot be treated as an afterthought. Accessibility needs to be built into the project from the very beginning, from planning activities and preparing materials to choosing venues and working with educators. The project also changed our understanding of outreach itself. We began with the goal of improving scientific temper among specially-abled children, but we finished with a much broader appreciation of how science communication can strengthen confidence, participation, and community dialogue.
If someone were planning a similar outreach initiative elsewhere in India, our advice would be simple: spend time listening before designing activities. Teachers, caregivers, and especially the children themselves understand their needs far better than any project proposal can anticipate. Their feedback is essential for making outreach genuinely inclusive.
Looking back, we would devote even more time to co-designing activities with special educators from the earliest stages of planning. We would also develop more multilingual, reusable, and accessible learning resources that schools could continue using after the outreach programme ended. Measuring long-term changes in scientific thinking is another aspect we hope to strengthen in future projects.
The IndiaBioscience Outreach Grant gave us much more than financial support. It provided the opportunity to experiment, adapt, and learn from the community. More importantly, it reminded us that inclusive science communication is not about creating separate spaces for specially-abled children, it is about ensuring that science belongs to everyone.
For us, the greatest success of the project was not the number of schools visited or activities conducted. It was seeing children become confident enough to ask, "Why?" That single question is perhaps the strongest foundation for developing scientific temper, and it is one that every child deserves the opportunity to ask.
