Between

Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria) launched a targeted programme to foster collaboration between scientific Communities of two countries in the area of Information and Communication Science & Technology. In India, on behalf of the Department of Science & Technology, Indo-French Centre for Promotion of Advanced Research (IFCPAR/CEFIPRA) invites proposals from the Indian scientists / researchers.

Areas of collaboration

The Project proposal will be supported in the following scientific areas:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Cybersecurity
• Signal Processing

Eligibility

Applicants from both countries must fulfil the following requirements:

On the Indian side: Applicants have to hold a permanent position as scientists/ Faculty members in universities/ deemed universities, academic institutes and national research and development laboratories/institutes.

On the French side: Please visit website of INRIA for more details.

Application

The joint proposal shall be written in English. Proposal submitted to only one Party will not be considered. All applicants must fulfil their national eligibility rules for their research grant application. A format is given for the submission of proposal. Applicants from Indian side should ensure that French collaborator must submit the proposal to Inria in their specified format.

Evaluation of project proposal

After the closure date of call, Inria and DST will exchange list of proposals, received on their side. Commonly received proposals will be evaluated by DST, CNRS and Inria according to their own evaluation rules, and will rank the proposals based on scientific quality and interest.

The evaluation criteria will be based on the following:

• Relevance of the proposal to the call
• Technical and Scientific quality of the proposal
• Quality of the project management & methodology
• Global Impact of the proposal
• Quality of the consortium and good synergies between the partners
• Mobilization of resources
• Added value to be expected from French-Indian research collaboration
• Balanced Scientific and Financial contribution

Project funding

Jointly selected proposals will be funded in India by DST and in France by Inria. The joint proposal must meet the criteria of the funding institutions for consideration. Each project will be funded for a period of three years. The indicative funding from each side will be up to Euro 10000-15000 (Rs. 10-15 lakhs) per project per year. The support will be given under the following heads:

• International travel (including airfare (India to France & vice-versa), daily allowance, accommodation and domestic travel in the receiving country during a participant’s stay abroad) for researchers, engineers, post-doctoral Fellows, Ph.D Students as per CEFIPRA norms
• Support for JRF /SRF / RA/ PDF (as per DST guidelines)
• Contingency Upto Rs. 50,000 per year.

The cost of accident and sickness insurance during travel will not be supported under this Programme. Since, the project is supported mainly for collaboration; applicants have to indicate about the status of co-funding.

Intellectual Property

The rights of intellectual property arising from the program shall be, in principle, the joint property of the project participants and their employing institutions. In respect of each result, which is to be protected, the project participants shall decide the modalities of protecting the rights. For each selected joint proposal, the project participants shall prepare a joint Intellectual Property Management Plan. A template for this IP Plan will be provided to partner institutions of this programme. Fund will be released only after receiving of the mutually accepted IP Plan.

Timeline

• Launching of call: July
• End of deadline: October
• Result: January/February (following year)