Science and Engineering Research Board
Established through an Act of Parliament: SERB Act 2008
Department of Science & Technology, Government of India

Considering the overwhelming response for the fixed grant scheme MATRICS, devised for active researchers pursuing Mathematical Sciences and the demand from researchers belonging to other Theoretical Sciences, the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) has decided to extend the fixed grant scheme to other Theoretical Sciences including Quantitative Social Sciences.

Objective

To provide fixed grant support to active researchers with good credentials in Mathematical Sciences, Theoretical Sciences and Quantitative Social Sciences. The main attribute of this scheme would be submission of a simple 1-2 page mathematical/theoretical proposal. The funding provided would cater to the specific needs of Mathematical/Theoretical Sciences research.

Scope

Mathematical Sciences (MS): Mathematical and allied areas
Theoretical Sciences (TS): All areas of Science and Engineering (other than mathematical and allied areas)
Quantitative Social Sciences (QSS): Quantitative Social Sciences which involves quantitative analysis using mathematical, statistical or computational techniques in the areas of Social Sciences

Nature of Support:

Research grant of Rs. 2 lakh p.a. plus overheads for a period of three years.

Purpose for which grants can be used:

• Purchase of text books and monographs.
• Purchase of minor equipment such as workstation, laptop, etc.
• Purchase of software for research purposes.
• Travel support and payment of registration fee for invited talks or presenting a paper in national and international conferences.
• Travel support for collaborative visits in India and abroad.
• Travel support and other logistics for inviting students and young researchers for research activities.

(Total expenditure for International travel cannot exceed Rs.2,00,000 of the overall budget)

Eligibility:

• The applicant should be an active researcher in the field of (i) Mathematical Sciences and allied areas; (ii) Science and Engineering (excluding mathematical sciences) or (iii) Social Sciences involving quantitative analysis using mathematical, statistical and computational techniques.
• The applicant should hold a Ph.D. or M.D./ M.S. / M.D.S./ M.V.Sc degree and must be working on regular basis in academic institutions/national labs or any other recognized R&D institutions.
  

  [The term “Regular” refers to: (1) Those who are appointed by the institutions against the ‘sanctioned‘ post and are regularized/confirmed after the probation period is over (2) Those who are appointed in a tenure post, but are likely to be renewed after the end of the tenure].

• The applicant should have completed Ph.D. or M.D./ M.S. / M.D.S./ M.V.Sc degree atleast five years prior to the submission of proposal, in order to have gained individual experience.
• The applicant should have at least four years of service remaining before superannuation as on the date of submission of the proposal.
• Foreign Nationals (including PIO, OCI) working as regular employee in any of the public funded and recognized R&D laboratories/institutions in India are eligible to apply

Restrictions

• An applicant is eligible to submit only one proposal during a call.
• PIs who have received grant under MATRICS cannot apply under SERB International Travel Support Scheme during the project duration.
• Co-PIs are not allowed in the scheme.
• Pls who have availed MATRICS grant can re-apply under the MATRICS Scheme only after completion of a two years cooling period starting from the end date of previous MATRICS grant.
• There is no provision for extension of project duration.

Mode of Application and Selection:

The call for applications will be notified through the website www.serbonline.in and www.serb.gov.in.
The proposal should be submitted online only at www.serbonline.in. The selection will be based on the recommendations of an Expert Committee and the criteria of consideration would be (1) credentials of PI (2) publications record and (3) mathematical/theroretical content of the proposal.

Review of Work Done:

At the end of each year, the recipients should upload annual report including list of publications and details of talks given in conferences and collaborations that have been initiated.

Plagiarism

Proposals submitted need to be original and plagiarism in any form will not be acceptable. All submitted proposals would be subjected to a third party similarity check and proposals are liable to be rejected if found plagiarised. Any text taken verbatim from other source needs to be identified using quotation marks and proper reference. Applicants are requested to pre-check their proposals for plagiarism before uploading to avoid any serious repercussions at a later stage.

Scientific Social Responsibility

SERB has adopted Scientific Social Responsibility (SSR) Policy to imbibe a culture of social commitment among SERB Grantees. The policy intends to effectively utilize scientific infrastructure and expertise of SERB grantees to benefit other S&T stakeholders especially the less-endowed researchers and the society. SSR activities need to be chosen after approval and SERB Grantees need to undertake these SSR activities during their project period.

How to Apply Online:

• Applicants should first register in the online website,www.serbonline.in
• After log-in applicants are required to fill all the mandatory fields in Profile Details Section under User Profile which includes Bio data (as per defined template), Photo, Institute Address, etc.
• Some of the details required to be entered for proposal submission include Project Title (max 500 characters), Mathematics review subject classification in case of MATRICS, Keywords (max 6), Project summary (max 3000 characters), etc.

Documents required (in PDF):

• Bio-data
• 1-2 page(s) project proposal (Download document)
• List of ten most significant publications
• List of all publications in the last five years
• Certificate from Principal Investigator (Download document)
• Endorsement Letter from the Head of Institution (Download document)




Name of the Programme	Programme Advisor / Coordinator	Programme Officer
MATRICS	Dr.Premila Mohan Scientist G	Dr.K.K. Magesh Kumar Scientist D