Cognitive Science Research Initiative (CSRI)

What is the Cognitive Science Research Initiative?

Cognitive Science Research Initiative (CSRI) is a research funding programme of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), started in 2008 during the 11th Five Year Plan. CSRI funds work on how the human mind and brain represent and manipulate knowledge, drawing together psychology, computer science, linguistics, philosophy and neuroscience.

According to the DST programme page, CSRI exists to build a research base that can produce better answers on cognitive disorders and related social problems; psychological assessment tools, earlier diagnosis, better therapies, intervention technologies and rehabilitation programmes.

CSRI is administered by DST's SERC-related divisions and proposals are submitted through DST's Electronic Project Management System (e-PMS) at onlinedst.gov.in.

Thrust areas

• Foundations of cognition
• Language and cognition
• Computational intelligence
• Cognitive psychology
• Cognitive neuroscience

What CSRI supports

• Individual R&D projects in the identified thrust areas, with support for equipment, manpower and running research costs.
• Multi-centric mega projects, encouraged for socially relevant problems and for understanding neurodegenerative diseases and their therapeutics.
• CSRI post-doctoral fellowships (CSRI-PDF), a two-year fellowship aimed at building trained human resources in cognitive science.
• Schools, training programmes, workshops and conferences, given partial support and considered through the year rather than only in calls.

Who is eligible for CSRI?

You can apply if you are:

• A researcher with a regular position in a recognised Indian academic institution, university, national laboratory or research organisation, for project grants. The institution provides the space, facilities and administrative endorsement.
• A PhD holder under 40 years of age in science, engineering or an allied area of cognitive science, for the CSRI post-doctoral fellowship. Candidates who have submitted their PhD thesis are also eligible to apply.
• A group of institutions proposing a multi-centric project on a problem that a single centre cannot address.

You cannot apply if:

• You are an individual outside an institution. CSRI is an extramural research grant; funds are released to the host institution, not to a personal account, so an independent researcher without an institutional host is not eligible.
• You are a patient, carer or family member looking for financial help with a cognitive or neurological condition. CSRI funds research, not treatment, and there is no personal benefit of any kind under it. For treatment support, the route is a health scheme such as Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY, not this programme.
• You are above the age limit for the fellowship. The CSRI-PDF upper age limit is 40 years.
• You are proposing purely commercial product development. CSRI is an academic research programme; product translation and start-up funding sit with other agencies such as BIRAC or the DST-Nidhi programmes.

What documents are required for CSRI?

How to apply for CSRI

1. Watch the DST website at dst.gov.in and national dailies for the CSRI call for proposals. Calls are advertised periodically and carry a stated last date, which DST has extended in past rounds.
2. Register or log in on the DST Electronic Project Management System (e-PMS) at onlinedst.gov.in.
3. Choose the CSRI call and the correct component: individual R&D project, multi-centric project or CSRI post-doctoral fellowship.
4. Fill in the proposal: objectives, thrust area, methodology, timeline, detailed budget under equipment, manpower, consumables, travel and contingency, and the expected deliverables.
5. Attach the supporting documents, biodata, publication list, institutional endorsement, and ethics clearance where the study involves human participants.
6. Submit online before the closing date and keep the acknowledgement. Submission is online only.
7. Track the proposal through e-PMS. Proposals go through expert peer review and a programme advisory committee before a funding decision.

Proposals for schools, training programmes, workshops and conferences under CSRI are considered through the year on request, rather than only during a call.

How much does CSRI pay?

For the CSRI post-doctoral fellowship, DST has notified a fellowship of Rs 55,000 per month, along with House Rent Allowance as per Government of India norms and a research contingency grant of Rs 2 lakh per year. The fellowship is tenable for two years.

For research projects, funding is need-based against the sanctioned budget — equipment, manpower such as JRF or SRF positions, consumables, travel and contingency, and is released to the host institution in instalments against progress. DST does not publish a fixed ceiling for CSRI project grants; the sanctioned amount depends on what the expert committee approves.

What happens after a CSRI project is sanctioned

Sanctioned projects are monitored by DST through periodic progress reports, utilisation certificates and statements of expenditure from the host institution. Equipment bought from the grant belongs to the institution. Multi-centric projects have a coordinating institution that consolidates reporting across partners.

Outputs expected from CSRI work are publications, tools and assessments validated for Indian populations, and where possible interventions that can be taken to clinical or educational settings.

Help and contacts

• CSRI programme office, Department of Science & Technology to 011-26534166
• Programme page; dst.gov.in, Cognitive Science Research Initiative
• Proposal submission and technical issues, the e-PMS helpdesk at onlinedst.gov.in

There is no fee to submit a CSRI proposal, and no agent can get a proposal sanctioned. Decisions are taken by peer review and expert committees only.

How to check your application status

CSRI does not have a public token-tracking page like a subsidy or pension scheme, because it funds research proposals that go through committee review rather than automatic disbursal. Status checking works differently at each stage.

1. Right after submission. The DST e-PMS portal (onlinedst.gov.in) generates an acknowledgement with a proposal reference number the moment a proposal is submitted online. Save this number and the acknowledgement PDF; it is the only proof of submission and DST will ask for it in any correspondence.
2. While the proposal is under review. Log in to the same e-PMS account used to submit the proposal. The portal shows the proposal's current stage, such as received, under expert review, or placed before the programme advisory committee. There is no SMS or email auto-update system publicised for CSRI, so applicants need to log in periodically rather than wait for a notification.
3. If the portal shows no movement for several months. Proposals are reviewed at the pace of expert committee meetings, which are not held on a fixed monthly calendar, so a long gap between submission and a decision is normal for this programme and is not by itself a sign of a problem.
4. For a definitive answer beyond the portal. Contact the CSRI programme office at DST on 011-26534166, quoting the e-PMS proposal reference number, the applicant's name, and the institution. Phone follow-up is the only route for a specific answer once the portal status has stopped changing, since CSRI has no separate helpline or SMS gateway of its own.
5. After a sanction. Once a project or fellowship is approved, DST communicates the sanction order to the host institution's administration, not directly to an individual's personal address in every case. Applicants should also check with their institution's research or grants office, which formally receives the sanction letter and the first instalment.
6. Once a project is running. Status tracking shifts from "has my proposal been selected" to project monitoring: the host institution submits periodic progress reports, utilisation certificates and statements of expenditure through e-PMS, and delays in DST releasing the next instalment are usually tied to whether these have been filed on time, not a hidden rejection.

Common reasons for rejection

CSRI works through peer review and a programme advisory committee, so most rejections happen on eligibility or documentation grounds before a proposal is even judged on scientific merit, or on quality grounds once it reaches review.

• Proposal falls outside the five thrust areas. CSRI funds foundations of cognition, language and cognition, computational intelligence, cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. A proposal in general psychology, general AI, or general neuroscience that does not connect to cognition specifically is screened out before technical review. Fix: state explicitly, in the opening of the proposal, which thrust area the work falls under and why.

2. No institutional endorsement, or an incomplete one. DST releases funds to the host institution, not to an individual, so a proposal without the head of institution's signed endorsement confirming space and facilities is treated as incomplete. Fix: get the institutional endorsement finalised before submission, not after, since it cannot usually be added retroactively once the call closes.

• Applicant does not hold a regular position, or has no institutional affiliation. CSRI is an extramural grant to institutions; an independent researcher without a host institution is not eligible regardless of the quality of the idea. Fix: this cannot be worked around within CSRI; the applicant needs an institutional affiliation before applying, not after rejection.
• Fellowship applicant is over the age limit or lacks proof of PhD. For CSRI-PDF, the upper age limit is 40 years, and applicants must show a PhD or proof of thesis submission. A missing age proof or an unclear thesis-submission certificate is a common documentation-stage rejection. Fix: attach the university's thesis submission receipt or the PhD certificate, and a clear date-of-birth proof, rather than assuming the biodata form is sufficient on its own.
• Budget is vague or not broken down by head. A proposal that asks for a lump sum without splitting the request into equipment, manpower, consumables, travel and contingency, each justified against the work plan, is weak at the review stage even if the science is sound. Fix: itemise the budget under each head and tie every major cost to a specific deliverable in the work plan.
• No ethics clearance where the study needs one. Proposals involving human participants, patients or clinical data that do not carry, or do not commit to obtaining, ethics committee clearance are held up or rejected at review, since DST cannot sanction human-subject research without this in place. Fix: attach existing clearance, or a clear statement of when it will be obtained and from which institutional ethics committee, before submission.
• Proposal reads as product development rather than research. CSRI is an academic research programme; a proposal built around building and selling a commercial product or app, without a research question or expected scientific output, is not the right fit and is usually redirected rather than funded. Fix: frame the proposal around the research question and its validated output (a tool, an assessment, a therapy protocol) rather than around a marketable product.
• Submission arrives after the call's closing date. CSRI is only accepted through e-PMS during an advertised call window; the portal typically closes submissions at the deadline, and a late proposal has no manual override. Fix: submit well before the closing date, since e-PMS can be slow to upload attachments close to a deadline and DST does not treat portal congestion as grounds for an extension.