Fellowships In India
BIRAC Social Innovation Fellowship-SPARSH Fellowship

BIRAC Social Innovation Fellowship-SPARSH Fellowship

About BIRAC Social Innovation Fellowship-SPARSH Fellowship

The call is open for position of “SPARSH Social Innovator (SPARSH Fellows)” at 14 Sparsh centres across India for Social Innovation Immersion

SIIP (Social Innovation Immersion Program), a component of SPARSH scheme, is BIRAC’s social Innovation fellowship/award program aimed at creating a pool of biotech “Social Innovators” who could identify the needs & gaps within communities and then can help bridge the gaps either through an innovative product development or services. The Program is implemented through SPARSH Centres.

The immersion program is a unique social Innovation platform which provides opportunity for clinical and rural immersion and also funding support for developing the prototype through mini kick start grant apart from the monthly fellowship to young social Innovators.

SPARSH Social Innovators / SPARSH Fellows

BIRAC Social Innovators will be selected through National level application and shortlisting process in collaboration with SPARSH Centres and SPARSH knowledge partners.

Selected Fellows would be designated as ‘SPARSH Social Innovators/ SPARSH Fellows’ who would receive a fellowship from BIRAC (amounting to INR 50,000/month for 18 months) and a onetime mini-kick start grant of INR 5 lakhs per fellow which will be provided during the course of the fellowship.

The SPARSH Fellowship requires the Innovators to work fulltime and cannot be combined with fellowships from other funding organizations.

The Fellows will be stationed at one of the SPARSH Centre who would provide all the requisite support to the Social Innovators in following thematic areas:

• Maternal and Child Health
• Ageing and Health
• Food and Nutrition
• Waste to Value
• Combating environmental pollution
• Agri-Tech

Highlights of the Fellowship/Award

✓ Fully funded fellowship with monthly stipend of Rs 50,000 pm
✓ Rs 5 Lakhs mini kick start grant
✓ Clinical/ Rural Immersion
✓ Access to BIRAC network of Mentors and Investors
✓ Mentoring by SPARSH Knowledge partner and 14 SPARSH Centres
✓ Opportunities to seek funding on completion

Eligibility:

✓ The Social Innovation fellowship is a prestigious award which will be provided to only Indian Citizen

✓ Indian undergraduate (B.Tech, BE, MBBS) or postgraduate (MSc, MS, M.Tech, MPhil, MD) & PhD below 35 years from fields of life sciences, Agriculture, Engineering, medicine & human biology are eligible to apply.

Timeline:

The fellowship is for a duration of 18 months and cannot be extended further.

Selection process

1. The applications for fellowship will be invited at the national level through advertisements in national dailies and suitable magazines. The application will be submitted online through BIRAC portal. In the application form, the applicant will be asked to indicate his/her choice of the SPARSH Centre.

2. The Centre-wise list of applicants will be created and sent to respective Centre for eligibility checks and further shortlisting and evaluation.

3. The shortlisted applicants will be called for an Interview / presentation at the respective SPARSH centers before an Expert Committee which would also involve BIRAC representative.

4. The shortlisted applicants will be called as Social Innovators and will enter into an agreement with SPARSH Centre