Ministry of Human Resource and Development has recently launched a scheme called, ‘Impactful Policy Research in Social Sciences’ (IMPRESS) scheme to promote research in the field of Social Sciences. The main aim of IMPRESS is to fund projects in the field of Social Sciences which covers all relevant Social Sciences area such as state and democracy, urban transformation, media culture and society, employment skills and rural transformation, governance innovation and public policy, agriculture and rural development, social media and society, politics law and economics.
The project is implemented by ‘The Indian Council for Social Science Research’ (ICSSR) and has already started receiving the proposals. The proposals can be sent to the online portal- http://impress-icssr.res.in/ . The last date for online and hard copy submission of research proposal is November 30, 2018. The detailed guidelines for proposal submission are also available on the website.
IMPRESS will be implemented up to March 31, 2021 under which 1500 research projects would be funded. The research will also help in guiding the policy making. To ensure that research in Social Sciences is encouraged and enriched, UGC has directed all Universities to actively participate in the scheme.
The broad objectives of the scheme are (i) To identify and fund research proposals in Social Sciences with maximum impact on the governance and society (ii) To focus research on 11 broad thematic areas – (i) State and Democracy (ii) Urban transformation (iii) Media, Culture and Society (iv) Employment, Skills and Rural transformation (v) Governance, Innovation and Public Policy (vi) Growth, Macro-trade and Economic Policy (vii) Agriculture and Rural Development (viii) Health and Environment (ix) Science and Education (x) Social Media and Technology (xi) Politics, Law and Economics.
The proposals received within the given deadline will go to ICSSR committee for verification. The proposals which get verified will then be reviewed and scored.