Selection of Projects:
The selection of the projects will be largely through a fully open competitive mode. The priority strategic areas identified through wide deliberations and discussions or those needing urgent solutions may however, also be addressed under this Fund if need be, in a sponsored mode or a combination of sponsored and competitive modes. The selection will be in two steps. First the Concept Notes for projects in prescribed formats will be called through open publicity in newspapers, and the ICAR website from time-to-time. The Strategic Areas on which Concept Notes are to be called will be decided through intense deliberations by the Empowered Committee with experts for each call for proposals. Any scientist or preferably a group of scientists from preferably, a group of institutions: public, CGIAR, private, or civil society, with demonstrated and proven capacity in terms of expertise and availability of adequate infrastructure in the area of research concerned will be eligible to submit Concept Notes. Any private or civil society institution will be eligible to be proponent if and only if it is not less than five years old and should have been recognised and registered by the competent State or Central authorities as an organisation entitled to carry out scientific research. The submission process will be entirely electronic through web. Project Concept Note (PCN) outlining the research proposal, will not exceed two-three pages and must include the background and importance, specific objectives, approach and expected output with tentative budget requirement. The proposals can be for a period of from three up to five years and should preferably involve multi-institutional collaboration. The budget of a proposed project should not be less than Rs.2 crore and on a realistic basis. The Concept Notes will be first screened at the Secretariat level on the basis of whether the basic requirements for submitting a Concept Note are fulfilled. The screened Concept Notes will then be examined by eight to nine subject matter experts committees approved by the EC. The Concept Notes recommended by the expert committees will be developed into full proposals in prescribed formats. The Secretariat will try to provide handholding in the process of development of full proposals. The respective Expert Committees will again examine the full proposals. The proposals recommended by the expert committees will be reviewed and approved by the EC. The finally selected proposals will be modified/ improved according to the recommendations of the respective committees & submitted to the National Coordinator.
For the project proposals approved by the EC, the Secretariat will issue the sanction letters in a prescribed format after signing of MOUs wherever needed. The MOU will also have clear-cut provisions of sharing IP mutually agreed by the partners on the basis of IPR Policy/ guidelines of ICAR (Refer ICAR 2006: ICAR Guidelines for Intellectual Property Management and Technology Transfer/ Commercialisation).
