Recently, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has launched the “First in the World Challenge” research grant to encourage innovative ideas from researchers across India.
Inspired by India’s success with Chandrayaan-3, the initiative aims to support groundbreaking research in health technologies, positioning India at the forefront of global innovation.
Objective
To inspire Indian scientists to develop novel, out-of-the-box ideas aimed at discovering breakthrough health technologies i.e. vaccines, drugs, therapeutics, diagnostics—thathave never been conceived, tested or attempted worldwide.
The proposal must present bold research ideas with significant, wide-ranging impact. If successful, it should lead to “first-of-its-kind” biomedical innovations that improve global health outcomes.
Proposals focused on “incremental knowledge” or “process innovations” will not be funded under this scheme.
Funding
It is a high-risk, high-reward initiative, however, ICMR considers it worth taking the risk to achieve something which no one in the world has ever done before.
Investigator will determine the budgetary allocations.
Funding will be released upon submission of CODAL documents [All Certificates of Educational qualifications, Proof of Date of Birth, Research Experience of Fellow, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) Certificate etc].
Eligibility
Individual Applicants: Scientists/Faculty working at govt. Medical Colleges, INIs, ICMR institutes, universities, laboratories.
Institutes registered under UGC, AICTE, or NMC do not require a DSIR certificate.
Private Institutions, NGOs: Registered with DSIR.
NGOs must be registered on the NITI Aayog’s “NGO DARPAN” portal.
Indian startups, MSMEs and industries are also eligible to apply.
NRI/OCI/PIO Holders: As per DHR-ICMR norms.
Proposals can be submitted by an individual or a team of researchers (from single or multiple institutes).
Application submission only through Electronic Project Management System (e-PMS) portal of ICMR.
Selection Committee – Formed by experts of high repute, innovators, policy makers, scientists with outstanding record for conducting research in biomedical domain.
Additional Information
e-PMS This portal facilitates the Indian Scientists and Researchers to submit their Project Proposals for schemes of Department of Science and Technology.It provides facility to track the status of the submitted Project Proposals.For security reasons, IP address of the applicant’s computer is recorded.If any Principal Investigator is found to have furnished incorrect or misleading information at any stage, the Project Proposal shall be rejected.
