How to write a research grant proposal for Indian funding agencies

Who can apply for a research project grant in India?

Mostly faculty and scientists in regular posts. Check this before you write a word.

The Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), set up under the ANRF Act, 2023, now runs SERB’s old schemes. Its Advanced Research Grant call says the ARG “subsumes the Core Research Grant (CRG) of the erstwhile SERB”. The same call rules out researchers pursuing a PhD, research associates, postdoctoral fellows, ad-hoc and guest faculty, and anyone on a yearly contract.

So a PhD scholar will not be the PI. You may be the JRF once the project is funded, and you can do much of the groundwork for your supervisor. Postdocs have the ANRF National Post Doctoral Fellowship, where you write your own proposal, and ICSSR lets PhD holders on contract join as Co-Project Director if they meet its publication conditions.

DBT and DST’s own divisions run topic-specific calls (DBT’s go through its eProMIS portal), so follow the call document. UGC once funded major and minor research projects for teachers; I could not find a current call, so don’t plan around it without a live notice.

What sections does a research grant proposal have?

Use the funder’s template. The logic barely changes between funders, and SERB’s technical-details format for the Core Research Grant (still on the ANRF site) shows it well:

• Origin of the proposal (1 page): the scientific rationale.
• International and national status (2 pages and 1 page): who works on this, with recent references; the national part names Indian groups.
• Importance in the context of current status (1 page): the gap. The template calls this “a very important section”, rightly.
• Methodology (5 pages): how each objective will be met, with tables and figures, not general statements.
• Time schedule with milestones as a bar chart, plus use of results and risk.
• Expertise, roles and facilities: what each investigator does, their past and current projects, and the equipment already available.

Summary, objectives, outputs and budget go into web forms with character limits (PM ECRG allows 3,000 characters for the summary). The ARG call I read capped the scientific part at 15 pages in 11-point font, but the portal’s scheme page gave a different limit. Follow the current call.

ICMR is tighter: a 250-word summary under five set subheadings, no more than three or four objectives of up to 25 words each, methods written objective by objective (design, site, sample size, analysis, ethical issues) and a Gantt or PERT chart. Our sample size guide helps with that part.

Scholars help most with the status sections, which use the same skill as a thesis literature review. End them with the gap; our guide to writing a research gap statement shows how.

What does a good grant objective and work plan look like?

An objective in a grant is a piece of work that can be finished, checked and paid for. A thesis objective can afford to be broad. A funded one can’t, because someone will ask at the end whether you did it.

Here is a fragment from an invented proposal:

The better version names the homes, the period, what is measured and how often, who does it, and what happens if something goes wrong. Its sample count (40 homes, two samples, twelve months) feeds straight into the consumables budget, and a monitoring committee can check each dated milestone.

Write the methods at the level of our methodology guide, then cut to the funder’s page limit. Most first drafts I see spend two pages on background and half a page on method. Reverse that.

How do you write the budget and budget justification?

Build it from the work plan, not from last year’s sanctioned project. List every activity, cost it, then sort the costs into the funder’s heads.

The usual heads

ANRF’s ARG call has recurring heads (research personnel, consumables, travel, field work, contingency, and costs such as software licences and publication charges) and non-recurring ones (equipment, software, long-term facility access), with no transfers between the two after sanction. Travel and contingency are each capped at ₹5 lakh, and overheads come on top. JRF and SRF pay follows ANRF’s office memoranda, so use current rates, not an old proposal’s.

ICMR sanctions staff, contingency, consumables, travel and equipment, with overheads of at most 3% of the recurring budget excluding travel, and wants every sub-head justified.

ICSSR’s 2026-27 guidelines cap staff at 45% of the budget, field work at 35%, equipment and study material at 10% and contingency at 5%, with about 5% for a workshop. A research assistant is paid ₹37,000 a month. The 10% institutional overhead (maximum ₹1 lakh) is released only after completion.

What a justification line looks like

From the invented filter project: “One JRF for 36 months: household sampling (objective 2) and laboratory trials (objective 1); emoluments as per ANRF norms at sanction.” And: “Reagents for fluoride analysis of 960 field samples; per-sample cost from the attached quotation.” A reviewer can check both against the work plan in a minute.

Don’t pad. Asking for an instrument your department already owns (you listed it under facilities) invites a cut.

How do reviewers judge a grant proposal?

Funders publish their criteria. Read them and write to them.

ANRF’s ARG call lists scientific quality and novelty, significant rather than incremental advances, clear deliverables, feasible methods and likely impact, with the proposal itself as the main evidence and the team’s record secondary. Pre-proposals are screened first, shortlisted full proposals go to experts, and applicants may be asked to present.

ICMR asks five questions: does it address a priority problem, will it affect health outcomes, is it new, do the methods fit the objectives, and is it feasible on time. ICSSR uses blind review, then an interaction with shortlisted applicants.

Write for a tired reader. Page one should say what you will do, why it matters and why your team can do it.

Why do research grant proposals get rejected?

Some rejections are about the science. More than you would think are about rules that were in the call all along.

• The PI is not eligible: a contractual post, too little service left, or an unapproved host institution.
• The objectives are topics, not tasks. “To study groundwater quality” can never be finished.
• The status review lists papers but never states the gap.
• The methods are vague about sites, samples or analysis, so reviewers cannot judge feasibility.
• The budget does not match the work plan, such as an instrument no objective needs.
• Co-investigators in name only. ANRF’s ARG call says this can be a ground for rejection at the pre-proposal stage.
• The same work sent to another government funder without declaring it, which ANRF asks you to do.
• Copied text, including unmarked AI-generated text. ANRF states zero tolerance for plagiarism.
• Names or affiliations in a blind section, such as Part A of the ICMR format, which ICMR rejects at screening.

ANRF says a technically rejected proposal should not go back to any ANRF programme without substantial revision. So revise properly, using the reviewers’ comments where you get them.

Ask senior PIs who have handled the scheme to read your draft. For a second reader on structure and clarity, our research proposal support reviews drafts you have written; the plan and budget stay yours to defend before the committee.