Societal challenges refer to problems and issues that affect societies on a large scale, often spanning across multiple domain such as economic, environment, technology, health, energy, waste, water, management, agriculture and more.

The WISE SCOPE Fellowship program of the Department of Science & Technology (DST) aims to provide opportunity to Women Scientists and Technologists who have completed Ph.D. and want to utilize their S&T knowledge and expertise for the benefit of society. This program promotes projects that directly deal with challenges at grassroots level and address them through S&T interventions. Projects under WISE-SCOPE (WISE-Societal Challenges with Opportunities) should provide S&T solutions to our social problems, livelihood generation, drudgery reduction, health and nutrition related issues, management of natural resources, sustainable agriculture, climate change, disaster management etc.

Project proposal should include the development of viable technology/​technique with possibility of lab-to-land transfer, adaptation and scaling up for the benefit of society under following broad thematic areas. 

Broad Thematic Areas: 

1. Energy, Water and Waste Management (EWWM)

2. Engineering and Technology Development (ETD)

3. Environment, Climate and Sustainable Development (ECSD)

4. Agriculture and Allied Sciences (AAS)

5. Health, Food and Nutrition (HFN)

Age: The minimum age to apply is 27 years and maximum is 60 years as on the date of submission

Women Scientists who have completed Ph.D. in Basic or Applied Sciences or having equivalent degree like MD/MS/MDS are eligible for WISE-SCOPE.

Criteria of selection will be on the basis of Preliminary screening of eligibility, and then further Applicant’s credentials, identified societal challenge, Scientific methodology proposed, expected beneficiary on the ground by the outcome of the project, etc. and final selection would be made as per recommendations of the Subject Expert Committees (SECs). The final decision of DST will be communicated to the applicants only after obtaining due administrative and financial approvals.

Last Date of Submission: Proposal submission is open throughout the year.

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