Fellowships to unemployed women scientists proposed

The Department of Science and Technology, under the ‘Women Scientist Scheme’ provides career opportunities which includes fellowships, to unemployed women scientists and technologists, especially those who had a break in career, fellowship for pursuing research in frontier areas of Science and Engineering.

There are three major components of Women Scientist Scheme namely,

i) Women Scientists Scheme-A (WOS-A) for conducting research in Basic & Applied Sciences,

ii) Women Scientists Scheme-B (WOS-B) for S&T interventions for Societal Benefit and

iii) Women Scientists Scheme-C (WOS-C) that enables them to become Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) professional.

The fellowship amount for M.Sc, M.Phil/M.Tech and Ph.D categories are Rs.30,000/-, Rs.40,000/- and Rs.55,000/- per month respectively. The total project cost, for 3 years duration of these three categories, is Rs.20 lakhs, Rs.25 lakhs and Rs.30 lakhs respectively. Besides the Fellowship, the total project cost also includes grant for consumables, minor equipment, travel and contingency. The upper age limit to apply under this scheme is 57 years.

The above said scheme is also applicable to private institutions. Under this scheme, women are selected on all India basis.

On an average, per year about 400 women scientists are awarded financial support under Women Scientist Scheme. Over 30% of awardees of projects get absorbed in mainstream through regular employment. Also, more than 40% of the awardees under this scheme have been able to complete their PhD while pursuing the programme. More than 6500 research papers too have been published by these awardees. In addition, under WOS-C component of the Scheme, 136 women scientists have already cleared the patent agent examination and about 60% of them are pursuing their career in the area of IPR and are working in leading attorney firms, IP departments of govt. agencies, Multi National Corporations and Knowledge Process Outsourcing units. Further, 12 women scientist alumni have started either their own IP attorney firms or IP consultancy units and some are even working from home on IP assignments.

This was stated by the Minister of State for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Shri Y.S.Chowdary in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.