Ramanujan Fellowship

What is the Ramanujan Fellowship?

Ramanujan Fellowship is a scheme run by the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), which has subsumed the erstwhile Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB): under the Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology. The fellowship is designed to attract brilliant Indian and Indian-origin scientists and engineers working abroad to return and take up research positions in Indian institutions.

According to the ANRF/SERB awards and fellowships page, the Ramanujan Fellowship offers a consolidated fellowship of Rs 1,35,000 per month (inclusive of the House Rent Allowance component), a research grant of Rs 7 lakh per year, and Rs 60,000 per year as overhead paid to the host institution. The fellowship is tenable for five years and is non-extendable. It is named after the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan and sits alongside other ANRF fellowships such as the J.C. Bose and SERB Distinguished fellowships.

The purpose is reverse brain-drain: the scheme gives an established researcher based overseas a competitive salary, an independent research grant and an institutional home so that they can build a research group in India. The fellow can work in any of the scientific institutions, universities or national laboratories in India that agree to host them.

Who is eligible for the Ramanujan Fellowship?

You can be nominated if:

• You are a brilliant Indian or Indian-origin scientist or engineer working abroad at the time of nomination.
• You are below 40 years of age at the time of nomination.
• You hold a doctoral degree, Ph.D. in Science or Engineering, or a Master's in Engineering/Technology (M.E./M.Tech), or an M.D. in Medicine.
• You have a proven, outstanding research track record, as evident from your research publications.
• You have identified an Indian host institution willing to host you.

You cannot apply / are not eligible if:

• You already hold a permanent, tenure-track or regular contractual position in an Indian academic institution or laboratory at the time of nomination.
• You are not working abroad at the time of nomination.
• You are 40 years or older at the time of nomination.
• You are an individual seeking to apply directly — the fellowship is filed only through a host institution, not by the candidate alone.

A crucial condition follows selection: if a Ramanujan Fellow subsequently obtains any employment position in India, they become ineligible to continue drawing the fellowship and research grant and must relinquish the award. The fellowship is meant to support scientists during the transition back to India, not to supplement a regular Indian salary.

What documents are required for the Ramanujan Fellowship?

How to apply for the Ramanujan Fellowship

The Ramanujan Fellowship is not a self-application scheme. The route runs through a host institution, which acts as the nominator.

1. Identify and approach a host institution of your choice in India, a university, IISER/IIT, national laboratory or recognised research institute, and obtain its agreement to host you.
2. Register on the ANRF online portal at anrfonline.in (linked from serb.gov.in), where the host institution's head or authorised academic officer creates the nomination.
3. Complete the nomination form with the candidate's personal details, academic qualifications, current position abroad, research proposal and full publication record.
4. Upload the supporting documents: degree certificates, CV, proof of Indian/Indian-origin status, proof of the position abroad and the institutional hosting letter.
5. Submit the nomination online through the host institution's login before the cycle deadline. As per the portal, nominations for 2026 are received up to 31 December 2026, 5:00 pm.
6. Track the status on the portal; shortlisted candidates are assessed by ANRF's expert committee before the award is issued.

How much does the Ramanujan Fellowship provide?

The financial package, according to the ANRF/SERB portal, is:

• Fellowship: Rs 1,35,000 consolidated per month (including HRA).
• Research grant: Rs 7 lakh per year, to meet the direct costs of research.
• Overhead: Rs 60,000 per year to the host institution.
• Tenure: Five years, non-extendable.

The research grant is meant for consumables, contingencies, minor equipment, travel and other direct research expenses, subject to ANRF's grant norms. The overhead compensates the institution for the space and facilities it provides.

Help and where to get details

• ANRF/SERB portal: serb.gov.in and the online nomination portal anrfonline.in
• Portal technical support: support@anrfonline.in
• Phone: 011-26552179 / 011-26552197

Because the Ramanujan Fellowship is a competitive research fellowship rather than an entitlement, being nominated does not guarantee an award. Selection is based on the strength of the candidate's research record and proposal as judged by ANRF's committees. Candidates should confirm the current cycle's exact deadline and any revised financial terms on the official portal before applying, as ANRF periodically updates its fellowship norms.

How to check your application status

Because the Ramanujan Fellowship is nominated by a host institution rather than applied for directly, status tracking happens mostly at the institution's end, but a candidate can still monitor progress at each stage.

1. Portal login (institution side). The host institution's head or the authorised academic officer who filed the nomination logs in at anrfonline.in with the credentials used to submit it. The dashboard shows the nomination as submitted, under scrutiny, sent for expert review, or decided. As the nominated candidate, ask your host institution's nodal officer to check this dashboard periodically on your behalf, since individual candidates typically do not get a separate portal login for a nomination filed by someone else.
2. Acknowledgement number. Note the acknowledgement or reference number generated when the nomination is submitted. Quote this number in any email or phone follow-up with ANRF/SERB so the office can pull up the exact record instead of searching by name.
3. Email correspondence. ANRF/SERB communicates review outcomes, requests for clarification, and interview or presentation calls (where applicable) to the email addresses registered in the nomination form, both the candidate's and the host institution's. Check the inbox used at the time of nomination, including spam or promotions folders, since automated portal mails sometimes land there.
4. Direct follow-up for delayed nominations. If the nomination has been pending for several months with no update, the host institution's officer can email support@anrfonline.in or call the ANRF/SERB fellowship section at 011-26552179 or 011-26552197, citing the acknowledgement number and the year of the nomination cycle.
5. Outcome communication. A successful nomination is communicated to the host institution first, since the institution is the formal nominator and the entity that will receive and administer the grant and overhead funds. The institution then informs the candidate and initiates the joining formalities. There is no separate public results list published for this fellowship the way there is for some scholarship schemes, so the institutional channel is the authoritative source of the outcome.

Because nominations for a given year are received on a rolling basis through the year, there is no single fixed "results date." Turnaround depends on when the expert committee meets to evaluate the pool of nominations received up to that point, so candidates should expect the review to take several months rather than weeks.

Common reasons for rejection

Nominations for the Ramanujan Fellowship are turned down for reasons that are specific to how this fellowship is structured, not generic form errors.

• Candidate is not actually working abroad at the time of nomination. The fellowship exists to bring overseas-based researchers back to India. If the candidate has already moved to India, taken up a position at an Indian institution, or is between overseas assignments and physically in India when the nomination is filed, the nomination fails the core eligibility test. The fix is to file the nomination only while still employed and based outside India, and to be transparent about the current location and position in the CV.
• Candidate already holds a regular position in India. Some nominations are filed for scientists who technically retain an affiliation, adjunct role, or a lien on a position at an Indian institution while working abroad. ANRF views a "regular contractual or tenure-track position in India" as disqualifying. The fix is to clarify in the nomination that any Indian affiliation is informal or has been formally relinquished, and to have the host institution confirm this in the nomination.
• Age exceeds 40 at the time of nomination. Because there is no relaxation mentioned in the general guidelines, a nomination filed even a few months after the candidate's 40th birthday is rejected on eligibility grounds. The fix is procedural: institutions should check the date of birth against the nomination cycle's cut-off before submitting, not after.
• Research track record does not meet the "outstanding" bar. This is a competitive, merit-based fellowship, and ANRF's expert committee benchmarks nominees against other overseas Indian researchers in the same field. A CV with a modest publication count, no first-author or corresponding-author papers, or no clear independent research trajectory is a common reason nominations do not clear the review stage even when the candidate is technically eligible. The fix is to nominate only candidates with a demonstrably strong, independent publication and citation record, and to have the host institution write a research proposal that shows a clear, fundable direction rather than a continuation of the candidate's postdoctoral work under someone else's supervision.
• Weak or generic research proposal. A nomination is judged partly on the specific research plan the candidate intends to pursue in India. A proposal that is vague, overly broad, or duplicates work already well-established in Indian labs is more likely to be rejected than one that identifies a clear gap and a feasible five-year plan matched to the host institution's infrastructure.
• Host institution's hosting commitment is unclear or incomplete. Because the host institution is the nominator and is expected to provide infrastructure and administer the overhead grant, a nomination lacking a clear, signed commitment letter from the institution's head, or one where the institution's capacity to host the proposed research is doubtful, can be sent back or rejected. The fix is for the host institution to submit a specific commitment on space, equipment access and any co-funding, not a one-line consent letter.
• Incomplete or inconsistent documentation. Mismatches between the CV, the proof of current position abroad, and the proposal (for example, a CV listing a position different from the one in the supporting proof), or missing proof of Indian/Indian-origin status, lead to nominations being returned for correction or rejected outright if not resubmitted within the cycle. The fix is a document cross-check by the host institution's nodal officer before submission, comparing every name, designation and date across the uploaded files.
• Nomination filed by the candidate directly. Since an individual cannot self-nominate, a nomination attempted without a proper institutional login and authorisation is not valid. The fix is to route the entire process through the host institution's registered account on anrfonline.in from the start.

In each case, because the fellowship is awarded to a candidate through the host institution rather than to a walk-in applicant, most fixes lie with getting the institutional nomination right the first time: confirming eligibility dates before filing, building a strong and specific proposal, and ensuring the host institution's own paperwork is complete.